Recap: Mavericks 104, Cavs 95

Christian Eyenga, Manny Harris and Alonzo Gee played a combined 57 minutes in the loss to the Mavericks. That may not be changing anytime soon.

Granted, Boobie Gibson will get his typical allotment of minutes once his thigh heals, but Cavs coach Byron Scott seems grudgingly inclined to taking a long look at the youngsters.

"I'm having to play some of the younger guys more minutes than I would like," he said. "But then again, for them it's a great experience. It's going to benefit us in the end."

At the rate they're going, the end can't come soon enough. The Cavs have lost seven in a row and 17 of 18 with little hope in sight.

Scott is still determined to win games. He isn't interested yet in playing for next season, but at the same time, he is curious to see guys like Eyenga and Harris. They all made mistakes on Sunday, but they all have energy and athleticism. They have length, play hard and aren't immune to playing defense. All of that rates high marks with Scott.

Eyenga, particularly, has explosive legs and incredible leaping ability. How that translates every night on the court remains to be seen, but he should have plenty of time to show it off over the next few weeks. The Cavs aren't going anywhere in the standings except down.

Stats
Cavs
Antawn Jamison 35 points, 10 rebounds
Ramon Sessions 19 points, 12 assists, seven rebounds
Christian Eyenga four points, three rebounds (NBA debut)
Mavericks
Shawn Marion 22 points
DeShawn Stevenson 21 points, 5 of 12 3-pointers
Jason Terry 18 points
Tyson Chandler 14 points, 14 rebounds

Turning point
The Mavericks raced out to leads of 8-0, 12-2 and 21-7 within the game's first seven minutes. The Cavs were playing from behind the rest of the night.

Key stat
The Cavs shot 5 of 17 on 3-pointers, while the Mavericks were 10 of 27. At one point in the second half, they were 7 of 14 before cooling off late.

They said it
"You get yourself exhausted because you have to fight so hard to get back in the game. That's tough when you're in the situation we're in with the guys we have missing." -- coach Byron Scott, on falling behind big early and spending the rest of the night fighting back

Up next
The Cavs (8-26) host the Toronto Raptors (11-21) at 7 p.m. on Wednesday