CLEVELAND (AP) — Donovan Mitchell pounded his hand on the padded scorer's table, and the All-Star guard lowered his head to cover his face in disbelief.
That, or embarrassment.
Click to Gallery
Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson directs his team against the Charlotte Hornets during the first half of an NBA basketball game, in Cleveland, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
Cleveland Cavaliers' Darius Garland warms up before an NBA basketball game against the Charlotte Hornets in Cleveland, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
Cleveland Cavaliers' Lonzo Ball, top, grabs a rebound over Jaylon Tyson, bottom, during the first half of an NBA basketball game in Cleveland, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
Cleveland Cavaliers' Dean Wade (32) and Charlotte Hornets' Sion James (4) contend for a rebound during the first half of an NBA basketball game in Cleveland, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
Cleveland Cavaliers' Darius Garland, left, drives as Charlotte Hornets' Miles Bridges (0) defends during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Cleveland, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
Cleveland Cavaliers' Jaylon Tyson, top, goes up to shoot over Charlotte Hornets' Sion James (4) and Kon Knueppel, back left, during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Cleveland, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
Cleveland Cavaliers' Donovan Mitchell (45) keeps the ball away from Charlotte Hornets' Sion James (4) during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Cleveland, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
The Cavaliers, considered a strong contender to win the Eastern Conference title this season, look anything but one these days.
On Sunday, they came out flat against Charlotte, recovered and forced overtime before missing all 10 shots in the extra session to lose 119-111 to the Hornets, who were without star LaMelo Ball and have been one of the NBA's worst road teams this season.
In the final moments, some of the Cleveland fans who stayed around in Rocket Arena until the bitter end, booed the home team, which has too often played uninspired ball this season.
“We deserve it,” Mitchell said. “I was a fan once. I would boo us, too.”
Last season, the Cavs started 15-0 under first-year coach Kenny Atkinson, raising expectations higher than they've been since LeBron James led them to a 2016 championship and four consecutive trips to the Finals.
A disappointing postseason — Cleveland was eliminated in five games by Indiana in the conference semifinals — has been followed by an inconsistent, injury-riddled start to the 2025-26 season.
The losses along with a few head-scratching performances in the past two weeks have raised questions about the Cavs' roster and makeup. It's a close team, but one going through adversity that is threatening to chip away at the foundation.
Mitchell, who scored 48 points in a 130-126 win over Washington on Friday, blamed himself for Sunday's loss, the Cavs' sixth in nine games. He finished with 17 points on just 6-of-24 shooting, including a 1-of-11 outing on 3-pointers.
After Cleveland rallied to tie it in the fourth, Mitchell had a clean look on a game-winning 12-foot jumper at the regulation horn but missed.
“I had one of those nights on a night and situation when I'm not allowed to,” said Mitchell, who came in averaging 31.3 points, 5.4 assists and 4.8 rebounds. “If I play better, we win that game. Put this one on me. I know my teammates won't say that.”
It hasn't helped that Cleveland hasn't been whole all season.
Like other teams, they've battled an injury bug still biting. While they welcomed back center Jarrett Allen after he missed nine games with a finger injury, the Cavs were without forward Evan Mobley, the league's reigning defensive player of the year who could miss a month with a calf strain.
Guard Darius Garland has had to battle through lingering discomfort from offseason toe surgery and guards Sam Merrill and Max Strus have been out as well.
“No excuse,” said Garland, who scored 26 points against the Hornets and played the last few minutes in obvious distress because of his toe.
Everything is painful right now for the Cavs.
“No one is feeling sorry for us,” Mitchell said. “I wouldn't feel sorry for us. I know it's cloudy. I know it's dark. As long as we continue to stay together in this locker room, we'll be all right.”
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba
Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson directs his team against the Charlotte Hornets during the first half of an NBA basketball game, in Cleveland, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
Cleveland Cavaliers' Darius Garland warms up before an NBA basketball game against the Charlotte Hornets in Cleveland, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
Cleveland Cavaliers' Lonzo Ball, top, grabs a rebound over Jaylon Tyson, bottom, during the first half of an NBA basketball game in Cleveland, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
Cleveland Cavaliers' Dean Wade (32) and Charlotte Hornets' Sion James (4) contend for a rebound during the first half of an NBA basketball game in Cleveland, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
Cleveland Cavaliers' Darius Garland, left, drives as Charlotte Hornets' Miles Bridges (0) defends during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Cleveland, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
Cleveland Cavaliers' Jaylon Tyson, top, goes up to shoot over Charlotte Hornets' Sion James (4) and Kon Knueppel, back left, during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Cleveland, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
Cleveland Cavaliers' Donovan Mitchell (45) keeps the ball away from Charlotte Hornets' Sion James (4) during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Cleveland, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Phil Long)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran fired more missiles at Israel and Gulf Arab states Thursday, demonstrating Tehran’s continued ability to attack even as U.S. President Donald Trump claimed the threat from the country was nearly eliminated and predicted the war would end soon.
Iran’s strikes on its neighbors along with its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz have disrupted the world’s energy supplies with effects far beyond the Middle East. That has proved to be Iran’s greatest strategic advantage in the war. Britain planned to hold a call with nearly three dozen countries about how to reopen the strait, through which 20% of all traded oil passes in peacetime, once the fighting is over.
Trump has insisted the strait, which was open to traffic before the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran, can be taken by force — but said it is not up to the U.S. to do that. In his address to the American people Wednesday night, he encouraged countries that depend on oil passing through Hormuz to “build some delayed courage” and go “take it.”
Iran responded defiantly to Trump’s speech, in which the American president claimed U.S. military action had been so decisive that “one of the most powerful countries” is “really no longer a threat.”
A spokesman for Iran’s military insisted Thursday that Tehran maintains hidden stockpiles of arms, munitions and production facilities. “The centers you think you have targeted are insignificant, and our strategic military productions take place in locations of which you have no knowledge and will never reach,” Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari claimed.
Just before Trump began his address — in which he said U.S. “core strategic objectives are nearing completion” — explosions were heard in Dubai as air defenses worked to intercept an Iranian missile barrage.
Less than a half-hour after the president was done, Israel said its military was also working to intercept incoming missiles. Sirens sounded in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, immediately after the speech.
Attacks continued across Iran on Thursday, with strikes reported in multiple cities.
More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran during the war, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel. More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 U.S. service members have been killed.
More than 1,200 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced in Lebanon, home to Iran-backed Hezbollah militants who are fighting Israel, which has launched a ground invasion. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.
Iranian attacks on some two dozen commercial ships, and the threat of more, have halted nearly all traffic in the waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean.
The 35 countries speaking Thursday, including all G7 industrialized democracies except the U.S., as well as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, signed a declaration last month demanding Iran stop blocking the strait. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the countries will discuss “viable diplomatic and political measures” to resume shipping.
But no country appears willing to try to open the strait by force while the war is raging. There is a concern that Iran might limit traffic through the strait even after U.S. and Israeli attacks on it cease.
The idea of an international effort has echoes of the “coalition of the willing,” led by the U.K. and France, that was assembled to underpin Ukraine’s security in the event of a ceasefire in that war. The coalition is, in part, an attempt to demonstrate to Washington that Europe is doing more for its own security in the face of frequent criticism from Trump.
The U.S. has presented Iran with a 15-point plan for a ceasefire, but Trump didn’t say anything in his speech about the diplomatic efforts or bring up his April 6 deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face severe retaliation.
The conflict is driving up prices for oil and natural gas, roiling stock markets, pushing up the cost of gasoline and threatening to make a range of goods, including food, more expensive.
On Thursday, Brent crude, the international standard, rose again and was at $108 in spot trading, up about 50% from Feb. 28 when Israel and the U.S. started the war.
Though the oil and gas that typically transits the strait is primarily sold to Asian nations, Japan and South Korea were the only two countries from the region joining Thursday's call about the strait. The supply of jet fuel has also been interrupted by the conflict, with consequences for travel worldwide.
Weissert reported from Washington and Rising from Bangkok.
Mourners gather during a funeral procession for Alireza Tangsiri, head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, and others killed in Israeli strikes in late March, in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A firefighter extinguishes a car at the site of Israeli airstrikes, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
People take cover in a bomb shelter as air raid sirens warn of incoming Iranian missile strikes in Bnei Brak, Israel, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Members from the Popular Mobilization Forces attend a funeral of fighters who were killed in a U.S. airstrike, in Tal Afar, Nineveh province, north of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, April 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Members from the Popular Mobilization Forces attend a funeral of fighters who were killed in a U.S. airstrike, in Tal Afar, Nineveh province, north of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, April 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
The Indian flagged LPG carrier Jag Vasant transporting liquefied petroleum gas, is seen at the Mumbai Port in Mumbai, India, after it arrived clearing the Strait of Hormuz, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
President Donald Trump walks from the Blue Room to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
