Cavs' winning streak snapped, fall to Wizards 110-103 Thursday

The Cleveland Cavaliers returned from the NBA All-Star break with a clunker Thursday, falling 110-103 to the John Wall-less Washington Wizards at Quicken Loans Arena.

LeBron James, who earned his third All-Star MVP award on Sunday in his 14th straight start, scored 14 of his 32 points in the fourth quarter, connected on 13 of 18 shots from the floor, pulled down nine rebounds and handed out eight assists. J.R. Smith added 15 for Cleveland.

James, who became the seventh player in NBA history with 11,000 career baskets, did what he could to engineer a fourth-quarter comeback, scoring the Cavs' final 12 points. Cleveland went the last 9:42 of the game without somebody other than James scoring. That, combined with the team's porous defense, meant James' late-game offensive surge would be to no avail.

The Cavs (34-23) struggled from 3-point range, finishing 8-of-35 (23 percent) from beyond the arc. George Hill, Jordan Clarkson and Cedi Osman were a combined 0-for-9 from deep. The Cavs' four new players-Hill, Clarkson, Nance and Hood-combined for 29 points after totaling 49 in their debut at Boston and 48 at Oklahoma City.

"We got some really, really good looks," James said. "We played hard. I think the legs, being off for nine days kind of got to us, especially after the first quarter.

The Wizards (34-24) were still without five-time All-Star point guard John Wall following left knee surgery.Winning without Wall is nothing new for Washington, as they’ve won eight of their last 10 games, all without their All-Star point guard. Still, it was quite the comedown for the Cavs after the euphoria of their first two wins with their new team at Boston and Oklahoma City.

Bradley Beal led the Wizards with 18 points and nine assists, and Otto Porter had 15 points and eight rebounds. Tomas Satoransky has acquitted himself well in place of Wall in the starting lineup, and he finished with 17 points, four rebounds and eight assists. The Wizards shot 47.8 percent from the field as a team and hit 12 of their 30 three-point opportunities.

"It's still a work in progress for us," James said. "It's not going to be overnight no matter the excitement before the break. We've got a lot of things to work on ... we still played our game, we just didn't make a lot of shots."

With this latest win, Washington (34-24) pulled within a half game of Cleveland (34-23) for the third seed in the Eastern Conference and joined the Golden State Warriors as the only teams to have beaten Cleveland, Houston, Boston and Toronto this season. Also, Washington snapped Cleveland’s short but lively two-game winning streak following a trade that broke up the team and added four new players.

Cleveland, on the other hand, is back to reality. The turned the ball over too much, they couldn’t make open shots and they didn’t get enough stops late in the game. A team that makes so many mid-season changes is bound to go through growing pains, and that was likely the case for the Cavaliers on Thursday.

"I think in the second half (the ball) stopped moving a little bit, but, again you can't really trust your offense because we don't really know it that well yet," Lue admitted following the 110-103 defeat. "That's what kind of hurt us. When they started switching and not having a lot of options to go to offensively, that kind of hurt us. And when the guys are out there, the new guys, thinking and trying to play, that messes you up too. Because now when you're getting shots you're just thinking so much out there on the floor. It's a learning experience and we gotta keep getting better, keep working on it."

Before the game, Nance Jr. announced that the NBA will allow him to wear his dad's retired No. 22 jersey, which will remain hanging from the rafters in Quicken Loans Arena.

"I'm ecstatic about it," said the younger Nance, who will switch from 24 to 22 next week.

COMING UP FOR THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS: The Cleveland Cavaliers (34-23) play at Memphis (18-38) on Friday before hosting the San Antonio Spurs (35-24) on Sunday for a 3:30 pm televised nationally by ABC.