Forecasting the play in March
The Cavs play the Utah Jazz, Boston Celtics, Denver Nuggets and San Antonio Spurs all at home to begin March, and then road games at the Chicago Bulls, Charlotte Hornets, Atlanta Hawks, Houston Rockets, Orlando Magic and Pacers.
Closing out March, they then have the Sacramento Kings and Los Angeles Lakers at home, the Brooklyn Nets on the road and finish out with the Phoenix Suns in the comfort of Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
As our own Matthew Golonka emphasized, that first slate of road games in March is a notable one, mainly due to the six-game length of it in itself.
So in agreeing with Golonka here, the Cleveland Cavaliers should have a good chance in those matchups against the Bulls, Hornets and Hawks, but the rest, even the Phoenix Suns (who had an ideal 19-63 record as the Cavs last season) won’t be a team that’s a lock-it-in W, as they have at least a competent NBA point guard in Ricky Rubio now, and Deandre Ayton and Devin Booker, along with Dario Saric, should be a handful.
Projecting the performance of the young pieces, I would think for Sexton in this month, a statline of 14.4 points per game on decent efficiency, along with 3.1 assists per game seems reasonable, while a reasonable statline for Osman is 12.2 points on decent efficiency (and probably a bit less usage) and 2.5 assists per game, and a feasible statline for Zizic is 9.2 points and 7.0 rebounds per game.
I’d also imagine Garland, Porter and Windler would keep their statlines that I project they close out February with, and though this month will continue to produce defensive struggles for Garland, I could see him beginning to show he’s able to be the team’s playmaker of the future in this March stretch.
Continually working with Dellavedova (who I believe will stick through the deadline), I’d think Garland would be showing that he could run offense more and flash set-up ability more often than in the period before the All-Star break, where I would think he’ll take more time to learn to play off the ball for long stretches.
During this time, I would think Porter and Windler will grow even more comfortable playing with Nance in pick-and-rolls and/or dribble hand-offs, and while both could have growing pains likely trying to defend NBA wings, I see them showing more potential as off-ball defenders than they might show earlier in the season, and both will be plus rebounders.
In terms of Love, he’ll probably have more of a passing presence closing out the season and especially in March, as at this time, I would think he’ll be much more in-tune with how Beilein wants to score in the mid-post and from three-point range in dragging out bigs, but also make quality decisions and feeds to cutters up top.
Record-wise, I’ll say the Cleveland Cavaliers show more promise going into 2020-21, from the rookies mainly, and go a semi-decent 5-9 and don’t get blown out nearly as much as they could on paper with postseason contenders such as the Celtics and Pacers, for example, looking toward the NBA’s second season and maybe resting a key player or two.