Cavs: 3 players to watch in second 2019-20 matchup vs. Mavericks

Darius Garland

Darius Garland has had anything but an ideal start to his rookie season. He’s had 9.1 points per game on only 39.3% effective field goal shooting.

Again, though, the kid only appeared in five games in his collegiate career at Vanderbilt due to a reported meniscus tear, and his playmaking has been better than his assist average of 3.3 helpers per game.

Nonetheless, Garland has objectively struggled, and as some have touched on, it seems that some of his issues could be from just not letting shots, especially from three-point land, go. Garland has a nice stroke, but him only letting up 3.9 three-point attempts per game at this point, could play into him shooting only 29.6%.

Perhaps if Darius is looking for his own, especially in pick-and-roll switchouts, he could find more success as a scorer from beyond the arc, along with firing more off-the-catch. His playmaking instincts and vision have been really encouraging to me this season, though.

At any rate, I highlight him in this instance because Garland, Sexton and Osman were benched at the beginning of the Cavs’ last game at Miami by Beilein, mostly due to turnover issues and defensive problems, and after the loss, Beilein touched on how there could be a changeup involving the starting lineup against the Mavs.

Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor detailed how Garland could feasibly be demoted to the bench in favor of Matthew Dellavedova, given Garland’s problems on both ends, and with him making plenty of mistakes as of late. Fedor then noted how when Sexton and Garland are on the floor together this season, Cleveland’s “being outscored by 6.8 points per 100 possessions.”

I’m personally still in favor of Garland being able to fight through his struggles a bit more, but I do understand where Fedor is coming from, and ultimately, Beilein, if Garland goes to the bench in favor of seemingly Delly.

Regardless of if he’s starting in Dallas or not, I’ll be interested to see if Darius can respond individually to his struggles in this Cavs’ skid.

If so, that could help the Wine and Gold be much more competitive in this one, and Garland needs a better outing than the one he had in Miami on Friday.

In that game, he had 10 points on only four-of-12 shooting, and though he did take seven triples, he still didn’t have a great rhythm in the game. That was shown by him having four turnovers to three assists and also being a minus-13, as noted by ESPN.

Again, though, I hope Darius can respond in Dallas with a more productive outing.