Engine braking during MRCC?

Yesterday, I was headed down a hill, cruising with MRCC activated at 65. The car ahead of me was slowly decelerating, due to traffic up ahead, so MRCC compensated for that too... but what was peculiar was that my CX-5 actually downshifted by itself and employed engine braking, rather than the typical brake pad application as in most cases.

Has anybody else experienced this? Does the car know it's going down a hill, so it should use engine braking to keep the brakes from overheating?

Yes both of my cars have MRCC (2014 and 2018) and they both downshift plus brake. Sometimes my 6 can downshift more than one gear which is frustrating, so on my commute where there is a small hill I will either disengage cruise momentarily and coast down the hill or click up on a shift paddle and it will just hold 6th gear and brake. I am not sure if you could just put your CX-5 in manual mode so it maintains 6th gear, but this is normal operation for these vehicles. Now that I am used to it and expect it I am no longer bothered. Of note, the non MRCC equipped 2016+ cars have dynamic cruise ability and still brake/downshift down hills to maintain speed even though they won't adapt to traffic flow with the radar guidance.

Thanks. Didn't realize it'd downshift automatically, that's pretty smart of the car. I'm out of touch with recent advancements in car technology...