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We were all Svitnesses as Svi Mykhailiuk and Josh Hart were once again the two best players on the court as they dealt the Cleveland Cavaliers their biggest lost since July 1, beating the Cavs 111-109 in overtime in the Las Vegas Summer League semifinals to advance to Tuesday’s championship contest.
Mykhailiuk came out firing, hitting on his first five shots before finally missing a layup just to let everyone else feel better about themselves. What a dude. He finished with 31 points on 12-20 shooting and 6-11 from three to go with 4 rebounds.
According to Chauncey Billups and Mark Jones, who were calling the game for ESPN, Miles Simon has been getting requests from Hart to guard the other team’s best player each night. Hart’s matchup Monday evening was No. 8 overall pick Collin Sexton, who led the way for Cleveland with 27 points on 9-22 shooting and 2 assists to 4 turnovers. It was a tough matchup given Sexton’s speed and position, but it’s still great to see Hart take up the challenge on the night-by-night basis the way he has.
Hart finished with 37 points on 13-28 shooting and 6-15 from three and 7 boards.
The Lakers built an early double-digit lead but Cleveland fought their way back into it to force overtime.
The first overtime saw neither team give any quarter, with Hart and Sexton both going 1-2 at the free-throw line in the closing seconds to leave the game tied and force a second overtime.
But even amidst all the notable performances from Lakers fan favorites, it was Xavier Rathan-Mayes — who was forced into the starting lineup in Alex Caruso’s place as the latter dealt with some sort of illness that kept him from playing Monday night — who ended up being the hero of the game.
The team missed Caruso’s ability to set up the offense and communicate on defense, but Rathan-Mayes played about as well as you would expect given the circumstances, and shined when it mattered most. He finished with 12 points on 5-11 shooting and 9 assists to 2 turnovers, including two of the game’s biggest plays: a tip pass assist to get the Lakers the lead and a layup to helped seal the deal in double overtime.
With the late win in hand, Los Angeles will continue their title defense when they face the winner of Memphis and Portland in the Las Vegas Summer League championship Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m.