Dion Waiters didn’t want to talk about his team-high 24 points. He was more concerned about the five free throws he missed down the stretch of the Cavaliers 95-84 loss to the Miami Heat that was nationally televised on Wednesday night at The Q.
After finally getting some calls from the referees, he made just 6 of 11 foul shots.
“The most important thing is when I get to the line, I’ve got to make my foul shots,” he said. “They call that ‘free money.’ You’ve got to take that free money. It’s frustrating. I’ve got to hear it all night from my mom. I can’t even enjoy my Thanksgiving. I’m glad my son can’t talk yet or he’d have told me the same thing.”
Waiters was the man on the evening. Before the game, the Cavs denied an ESPN report that they were trying to trade him. Waiters called an ESPN report of a three-hour meeting with general manager Chris Grant ”nonsense.”
But after the game, he earned praise from coach Mike Brown for keeping the Cavs in the ball game against the two-time NBA champion Miami Heat.
“I think Dion is a guy who can score and score in bunches,” said Brown, who had insisted before the game that he wanted Waiters on his team. “I thought Dion played the game the right way tonight. He looked very good. He had a couple defensive lapses, but other than than I thought he was pretty good defensively.
“I thought he was tremendous offensively….He initiated the offense a lot of times where he drove the ball and kicked it to a guy who was wide open….Dion stepped in and took 3s at the right time. He drove the ball at the right time. He got to the free-throw line 11 times. He got six rebounds. I thought he played the game the right way and it was fun to watch him play.”
The same can’t be said for Kyrie Irving, who made just 6 of 19 shots, including 0 for 5 3-pointers, for 16 points — with four turnovers — as the Cavs lost their fourth straight game, their seventh in the past eight, to fall to 4-11.
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