East Notes: Cavs, Jarrett Allen, Bulls, DeMar DeRozan, Sixers

Cavaliers

Center Jarrett Allen indicated the Cavs should be able to stay afloat (and perhaps even flourish) without injured guard Donovan Mitchell, wing Max Strus and power forward Evan Mobley.

The Cavs beat the Timberwolves in overtime on Friday to move back into first place in the Central Division and second in the Eastern Conference.

Allen finished with a career-high 33 points and 18 rebounds.

“It just boosts us for when everybody else gets back,” he told reporters of the win. “Contrary to belief, we’re better when everybody is in the lineup.”

• On the bright side, Mitchell could be closing in on a return. “He’s progressed,” coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “He’s doing stuff on the floor. It just becomes the next workout and the next workout and how he feels and then continuing to ramp up from there.”
• We have plenty more on the Cavs’ big win in our latest batch of Dribbles.

Bulls

In an interview with Men’s Health, guard/forward DeMar DeRozan talked about how he gets out of a funk.

“For me, being an athlete, I combat those feelings with physical fitness; locking into my occupation. I have a routine,” he said. “If I’m not playing at night, I go back to the arena at night. Sometimes I get in an ice tub and take my mind away from everything that’s going on and recalibrate my emotions and take a second to myself. Because sometimes being around so many people, being overly stimulated with social media or the TV being on, you just need to take a second to yourself. A lot of times at the games we fly in from the city, we land at about 12, 1 o’clock in the morning. I’ll go back to the gym and do this routine and I might sit there until 3:30 in the morning, go home and get in bed, rest up, and get ready for the next day.”

DeRozan said he also sometimes reaches out to a friend.

“A good friend of mine is (free agent forward) Rudy Gay. I always call him, sometimes even if it’s about nothing specific—it’s more so just to talk, laugh, escape, and get lost in a conversation with him. He’s definitely one of my close friends.”

• DeRozan is considered the king of the fourth quarter for the Bulls, but guard Alex Caruso is his right-hand man, wrote Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times. Particularly defensively. “He’s incredible,’’ coach Billy Donovan said, via Cowley. ‘‘I think you need a full complement of players that can play to their own identity, and what he does is so unique. There’s no one on our team that does that, and there’s probably not that many players in the league that do what he does.”

76ers

• The Sixers fell to 6-11 without injured All-Star center Joel Embiid after Friday’s home loss to the Pelicans. They have also lost three straight without guard Tyrese Maxey, who’s in concussion protocol.
• Point guard Kyle Lowry on the struggles: “We’re missing Joel, we missed Tyrese the last couple of games. I think we have time to figure it out. We’ve got to get healthy and get to a position where we can compete.”
• Added coach Nick Nurse: “I’m in super-evaluation mode. I want to see who can execute what we’re going to need to execute when we get our people back.”