The Cleveland Cavaliers play host to the Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday, and a matchup between Collin Sexton and Devonte’ Graham could very well headline that one.
The Cleveland Cavaliers will be playing at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse on Wednesday against the Charlotte Hornets, which is something of a relief for the Wine and Gold after being on the road five of their last six games.
In the Cavs’ last contest on Monday, they were blasted by Pascal Siakam and the Toronto Raptors 133-113 in a game where they surrendered 29 fastbreak points, as noted by ESPN. Following that one, Cleveland veteran big John Henson was right in highlighting how many young teams often struggle with transition defense.
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Clearly, though, Darius Garland and the Cavaliers’ offense had an encouraging last few outings for Cleveland head coach John Beilein.
The Cavs got an overtime win over the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday, Cleveland fortunately had 27 assists at the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday, and at least had 30 assists and shot 48.9% from the field on Monday at Toronto, as noted by ESPN.
In that last game, though he had his struggles on the defensive end against the Raps, Collin Sexton made his presence felt on the offensive end for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
He had 25 points on 10-of-16 shooting, to go with five rebounds and four assists, and in the 2019-20 season, Sexton has led the Cavaliers in scoring with 17.7 points per game, according to NBA.com.
Sexton’s calling card is his relentlessness as a scorer, and though him shooting just 29.2% from three-point range so far this season is really unfortunate, he’s at least shown growth off-ball as a more active cutter, and he’s not taking as many ill-advised long two’s just inside the arc.
At any rate, in this Cavs-Hornets game on Wednesday, what should headline that one is a matchup between Collin Sexton and Charlotte’s Devonte’ Graham for good stretches.
I’d expect Sexton and Graham to both be getting plenty of shots up in this one and continue to be aggressive, and what is particularly intriguing to me in regards to this game is that both Sexton and Graham seem to have a chip on their shoulder.
As Cleveland Cavaliers fans are well aware of, Sexton closed his rookie campaign on quite a tear, and his incredible work ethic and tenacity makes me such a huge fan of his. On the other side, Graham, who was a 2018 second-round pick, has been one heck of a story in 2019-20 in his first season playing big minutes.
Kemba Walker is no longer with Charlotte courtesy of an unrestricted free agency departure to the Boston Celtics and Charlotte has featured offseason signing Terry Rozier (formerly of Boston) often at the 2 guard position. That’s been due to Graham manning the primary playmaker role on most occasions, and boy has Graham delivered in a big way.
Similarly to Sexton, Graham is leading his squad in scoring with 19.4 points per game, as indicated by NBA.com, and he’s shooting a tremendous 40.9% from three-point range on 9.1 attempts per contest.
Graham has been able to do plenty of damage to opposing defenses, and Sexton will have his hands full in pick-and-roll coverage a good amount against Graham, I’d imagine, and Graham’s proven to showcase promising playmaking ability, too, with 7.4 assists per game.
According to NBA.com, that is tied for seventh in the Association, with him tied with superstars James Harden and Damian Lillard.
In large part thanks to Graham’s efforts, along with solid contributions from the likes of Rozier, Miles Bridges, rookie PJ Washington, Cody Zeller and others, the Hornets have been probably more competitive this year than many would’ve expected coming into 2019-20, as they are a pretty respectable 13-17.
Much like the Cavaliers, Charlotte is playing a good amount of young pieces big minutes, such as the 24-year-old Graham in his first year playing considerably every game and a pair of 21 year olds in Bridges and Washington. Washington recently fractured his finger, though, and is reportedly likely to be sidelined through Christmas, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, so Cleveland won’t be needing to gameplan for him.
Moreover, this matchup on Wednesday I’d imagine often between well-motivated 6-foot-1 players in Sexton and Graham on both ends (though Kevin Porter Jr. could feasibly guard Graham in some stretches, too), should headline a fun game.
Of course, Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson will need to be effective, too.
Anyhow, let’s hope Sexton can be pretty efficient and get the better of one of the big surprises thus far this NBA season in Graham on Wednesday.