Cleveland Cavaliers: 5 most intriguing matchups of 2019-20 season

#4: At home vs. the Memphis Grizzlies – Dec. 20, 2019

As we’ve often mentioned here at KJG, Garland only appeared in five games in college at Vanderbilt due to a reported meniscus tear.

In his time at Vandy, he did make his presence felt as a scorer, both off-the-bounce and off-the-catch, though, as he had 16.2 points per game on 63.9% effective field goal shooting (which included him hitting 47.8% of his three-point looks), per Sports Reference.

Had he played a full collegiate season, perhaps Garland would’ve been more in the running as the top point guard selected in the 2019 NBA Draft.

That ended up being Murray State’s Ja Morant, who dazzled in the 2018-19 collegiate season, and was selected second overall by the Memphis Grizzlies, and could be the face of their franchise in coming years.

We hit on Morant a good amount here at KJG leading up to the time of the 2019 draft, and it’s clear the man is uber-athletic and really talented, much like Garland, but Morant projects to be a more all-around lead guard.

He had 24.5 points on 55.3% effective field goal shooting, to go with 10.0 assists and 5.7 rebounds per game (per Sports Reference), and was the Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year last season.

So, in turn, the first meeting between the top two point guards selected in the 2019 NBA Draft is one that I absolutely had my eyes on.

Along with that, though, the Grizz also added promising Gonzaga big Brandon Clarke (a player we talked about as maybe a Cavs’ draft target, too) in this year’s draft via reported draft night trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder, and he looks like a home run, too.

Clarke was the 2019 Summer League MVP as he had 14.6 points, 8.6 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game in only 21.4 minutes per outing in five contests (per NBA.com), and he played a huge role in leading Memphis to this year’s Summer League title; it’ll be entertaining to see him go up against the likes of another high-flyer and solid defender in the Cavs’ Larry Nance Jr. in plenty of instances I would think, and Ante Zizic and Jonas Valanciunas would make for a cool old school traditional big matchup.

2019 All-Rookie First Team member Jaren Jackson Jr. looks to be one of Memphis’ best players going forward, too, and the stretch-four who was dominant on a number of occasions on the defensive end last year (he had 1.4 blocks per game, per Basketball Reference) and can do good work in switch-out situations, is a player that could be tough for Kevin Love to have success against consistently at 6-foot-11 and 242 pounds with impressive mobility.

Memphis restricted free agency addition Tyus Jones will be a good test as a defender for Collin Sexton, too.

I’ll say the Cavs take this one in a close game as Garland and Porter lead the charge, whereas the other matchup on the road in the other meeting goes to the Grizz as they pull away in the second half.