Cleveland Cavaliers: Expectations for before the 2019-20 All-Star break

January

This month features more home games (nine) for the Wine and Gold than any other month. What that means for Cleveland is that it is an excellent chance to pick up some wins.

Young teams traditionally play better on their home floor and getting that many games at home in a month will hopefully get the Cavaliers into a nice rhythm.

January will be far from an easy month, though, as KJG’s own Josh Friedman and Matthew Golonka pointed out.

The Cavaliers have a trio of back-to-back games and will have to endure a lengthy six-game road trip where they face LeBron James‘ and the Los Angeles Lakers one night, and the new-look Los Angeles Clippers with Kawhi Leonard and now Paul George, along with key returning pieces such as Montrezl Harrell and Lou Williams (the reigning Sixth Man of the Year, yet again), the very next night.

Talk about a tough back-to-back, as Friedman and Golonka noted.

The month closes with some winnable home games against New York, the Washington Wizards, and Chicago then.

While the opportunity is there for Cleveland to bag a few wins, this would also be about the time of year where those rookies could hit the proverbial “rookie wall.”

Sexton hit that wall right around this time last year but managed to work his way out of the funk and put together an excellent final two months.

As we’ve often referenced, he led the Cavs in post-All-Star scoring in 2018-19 with 20.8 points per game on 58.5% true shooting (per NBA.com), so maybe his influence can help Garland and the other two rookies find a second wind.

The hope for Garland, Windler, and Porter is that if they do hit that wall this month, the veterans on this team help pick them back up, depending on who of the expirings are left, or at least Kevin Love and Larry Nance Jr. at minimum.

Granted, that won’t be easy for Beilein, either.

On to February’s slate before the 2020 All-Star festivities and a brief recap of the pre-All-Star expectations.