LeBron James shook off a blow to the face and scored 23 points in the fourth quarter — including 18 straight for Cleveland — as the Cavaliers won their sixth straight, 119-109 over the Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday night.
Stevens noted that Los Angeles’ compacted schedule could be impacting the team’s play. The Vegas game was the Kings’ fifth in eight days, and with days off Monday and Tuesday, he hopes to have a re-energized team hit the ice against Winnipeg.
“We did not score enough and gave up too much in these last five games,” Stevens said. “It was the end of a tough week. I thought that if we came out strong in the first 10 minutes against Vegas we would have been fine.”
“To have him go down is a huge, huge setback for us,” tight end Vernon Davis said. “Chris Thompson is one of the best in the league when it comes to running the ball, catching and making plays. To lose him is tough. It’s hard to replace a guy like that with his talent and his ability to do what he does. It’s a tough situation to be in.”
“It’s hard to replace a guy like that,” Moses said. “You might not be able to replace a guy like that, what he brings to the offense, what he brings to the locker room. … But we can’t [dwell] on it.”
Alex Smith entered Week 11 as the NFL’s top-rated passer and is on pace to set career records for touchdowns and yards. But Smith is trending the wrong way. His three games with a passer rating of less than 100 have come in the past five, and he was at his worst in Sunday’s loss to the Giants. He threw two interceptions and failed to have a touchdown pass for the first time this season. — Adam Teicher