The Cavaliers gave back a 29-point lead in Philadelphia, a season after the league's top bill bought 52 wins
The Cleveland Cavaliers led the 76ers 69-40 in the first half on Thursday and lost 114-106, USA TODAY reported. It was Philadelphia's home opener and LeBron James' first home game with the 76ers.
Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press reported that it was the largest blown lead for the Cavaliers in the play-by-play era, which began in 1996, and that NBA teams had won 466 straight regular-season games in which they led by 29.
The lead went in stages. Yardbarker reported that Cleveland was ahead 35-18 after one quarter, gave up an 11-0 run to open the third and still led by eight entering the fourth. USA TODAY reported a 15-0 Philadelphia run in the fourth, and the 76ers took their first lead at 96-95 with about seven minutes left, per Yardbarker.
Donovan Mitchell finished with 32 points and 10 rebounds on 11-of-19 shooting but scored two points in the fourth quarter, Yardbarker reported. Evan Mobley added 18, James Harden 16 and Jarrett Allen 14. For Philadelphia, Tyrese Maxey scored 32 and Joel Embiid 24.
Yardbarker's columnist argued that Cleveland drifted from what built the lead, writing that Allen "wasn't nearly involved enough in the second half." That is one writer's reading, and the Cavaliers' own account of the game is not in the reporting.
The opener also echoed last spring, when the Cavaliers blew a 22-point fourth-quarter lead against the Knicks in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, Yardbarker recalled.
That playoff run closed a season in which Cleveland carried the league's highest Effective Payroll, $280.8M, for 52 wins, the eighth-most.
Part of that bill was tax: in 2025-26 Cleveland paid $68.7M in luxury tax, 24% of its Effective Payroll.
That return earned the Cavaliers a WAGE Score of 35 last season. The reporting does not establish this season's payroll or how much of last season's salary is still on the books, so the size of the current bill is an open question. Last season's figures describe the ask only in outline: a payroll at the top of the league reads like a contender's when the wins sit near the top too, and 52 left a gap.
I'm not convinced one October night says anything about whether that money works: it is one loss of 82. What it does repeat is the shape of last spring's loss to the Knicks, a big lead given back late, and that is something a payroll cannot fix on its own.