Ding, ding.

Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily Ding here on The Athletic NBA NBA show.

I'm Jared Weiss.

I am joined by Will Gilly, the New Orleans Pelicans, beat writer for the athletic.

Will, what is Gucci Man?

I'm doing well man always

good to join you me and my guy Jared actually got to hang out in person not too long ago for

martin Luther King Day so that was cool seeing my guy again out there in Boston we ate Italian food

we watched football it was a good day I can't think of anybody I'd want to celebrate MLK Day with more than you. So I'm glad we're going to run it back here one time. So, might have made me drop a tear here. Let's start with the Cleveland Cavaliers, beating the Milwaukee Bucks. This was the big game in the early slot. They win $1.15 to $99 at home. Bucks were in control in the first quarter and then the calves just destroyed

from the rest of the game. I mean, the calves were unbelievable tonight. They, you know, they went

to toe to toe with the champs and gave them so much trouble just knocking down threes from all

over the place. I think they ended up with 19 threes as a team. Chetty Osmond and Kevin

Love went for 48 points off the bench, hitting shots all over the place.

Kevin Love was very, very good tonight.

Extremely impressively outscored.

The Bucks bench 57 to 15 tonight.

Just a really thorough performance by that Cavaliers team.

I think the one concern was for them.

Darius Garland looked like he had a little bit of a back issue there in the first half. Kept playing through it, went out in the second half, ended up coming back. I think that's something to keep an eye on because, I mean, this team just doesn't have any guards left. So they need Darius Garland to play. But yeah, really impressive performance for this team.

And I really wanted to keep an eye on this game because this is a potential first round matchup. I mean, we can start having those conversations, especially in the East. And I think after

this win, the Cavs jumped up to number three, but they're right there in that discussion with a

possible matchup against the defendant champs in round one. And I think you saw tonight just the size that they're right there in that discussion with a possible matchup against the defendant champs in round one.

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