Cavs: 3 players that must step up with Kevin Porter Jr. sidelined

Matthew Dellavedova

I know what many of you are thinking with this one. Matthew Dellavedova is not looking like a guy that should be playing a significant amount of minutes for the Cavs right now.

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Delly has only played 13.2 minutes per game in 2019-20, and his effective field goal shooting clip this season is a laughably low 38.9 percent, which is worst among regular Cavs’ rotation players, according to NBA.com.

Delly was also zero-for-eight on Wednesday against Boston, too, as noted by ESPN. In terms of points, he had a goose egg in 35 minutes, including striking out on all five of his three-point attempts.

With Porter and Exum seemingly out for I’d imagine at least a few games, though, the Cavaliers need Delly to step up some. Defensively, he at least is still going to be in the right position as a helper in most instances, and while on-ball, he is not what he used to be as a point-of-attack defender, he’ll still give you 200 percent and get loose balls.

For what it’s worth, while I fully understand the sample size is small, Dellavedova still has the best defensive rating this season on Cleveland among regular rotation players. In the last 10 games, he’s realistically third in that category, too, depending on if one counts Ante Zizic in that realm (of which I did in this case), per NBA.com.

Looking back at the offensive end, perhaps Delly can get lobs in to Larry Nance Jr. and initiate productive ball-swings or get it to Sexton, Love and maybe Garland in coming games. Garland’s reportedly not likely to be available in this weekend’s games against the Denver Nuggets on Saturday and San Antonio Spurs on Sunday, though.

Even with him having just 2.7 points per game this year, Dellavedova has still put up 7.4 assists per-36 minutes in 2019-20, as shown by Basketball Reference. This oop to two-way big Dean Wade was a heck of a feed in secondary transition, too; let’s get more of this, Delly.

https://twitter.com/cavs/status/1235363350399328258?s=20

Now, Delly’s turnovers have been a bit higher in his last 10 games at 12.3 percent, but typically, he’s a pretty low giveaway player, and his passing vision is still among the best on Cleveland.

Granted, Delly’s got to knock in occasional deep balls off-the-catch, though. That would’ve helped predominantly Love, Nance and Sexton, who had a career-high 41 points on Wednesday and is playing out of his mind lately, earn a W.

So who is the second Cav that comes to mind with KPJ sidelined? Cleveland’s starting 3.