Cavs: Larry Nance Jr.’s game at MEM could get him in shooting groove

Larry Nance Jr. has had a rough go as a shooter for the Cleveland Cavaliers this season, for the most part.

With Kevin Love still sidelined for a few weeks out yet due to a right calf strain/reaggravation, Larry Nance Jr. has been and will be filling in as the Cleveland Cavaliers starting 4.

Now, we know that Nance is not the scoring/catch-and-shoot threat that Love, who hit 37.4 percent of a career-high 7.0 three-point attempts last season, is. Nor is Nance nearly the mid-post threat, but Nance is a player that has done a really nice job as a playmaker/key initiator for the Cavaliers.

He’s displayed that sort of capability a bunch the past two seasons coming into this one for Cleveland, though. And while Love’s absence has played into it, it’s evident that after Darius Garland, when healthy, and he’ll seemingly be back next week from a right shoulder sprain, Nance has been Cleveland’s best playmaker.

Nance has averaged 4.3 assists per outing, and that’s aided players such as Garland himself, Collin Sexton, who is questionable at the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday (left ankle sprain), Andre Drummond and others. Cavs head coach J.B. Bickerstaff compared Nance to Draymond Green, regarding his playmaking feel, but also for his capabilities defensively, as was detailed by Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor.

Nance is clearly one of, if not the best defensive player on the Cavs, and he’s led the NBA in steals and deflections so far, and as Fedor pointed out, is “tied for first in Defensive Box Plus-Minus, second in Defensive Win Shares (behind teammate Andre Drummond) and has one of the best individual defensive ratings.”

Nonetheless, Nance’s catch-and-shoot game/scoring haven’t been a strong suit for him thus far in his interim starting 4 role, by and large.

Coming into Thursday’s game at the Memphis Grizzlies, Nance had only made 29.6 percent of his three-point attempts, and he had an underwhelming 8.5 points per game on 44.3 percent shooting. That clip would’ve been a career-low; I know it was only eight games to that point.

Fortunately for Jr., he had a game at the Memphis Grizzlies, in what was an improbable win, really, with so many players sidelined, that could get him going as a shooter/scorer more. Isaac Okoro, who was back after missing five games (left foot sprain/COVID-19 health and safety protocol), came up huge down the stretch, too.

Nance had 18 points on seven-of-seven shooting, and he was four-of-four from three-point range, to go with four assists, three rebounds and three steals. And per Cavs Notes, it was the second time Nance went seven-of-seven, but the first time a Cav had gone at least seven-of-seven and four-of-four from deep “in the same game.”

As Nance noted, too, via Fedor, him finally getting a triple to go down late in a loss at the Orlando Magic on Wednesday seemingly got his confidence going heading into that Thursday game at Memphis.

That Cavs game at Memphis could get Nance in more of a shooting/scoring groove.

With Nance, he’s been hesitant to just let looks go at times, and last season more so leading into the hiatus/end of it, that didn’t appear to be the case nearly as much. Nance hit 35.2 percent of his three-point attempts, which was a pretty solid clip, especially when factoring in the plethora of other ways he contributes.

So again, leading into that Memphis game, he was in a shooting slump on spot-ups, which happens to guys, and I get that. Albeit he was passing up looks like those too often it seemed, and on other occasions, would take them, but just appeared out of rhythm leading into those shots beforehand, and the confidence wasn’t there.

To me, though, that kind of game Nance had as a shooter could be big for his confidence, and it could be a point of reference for him to just get him in more of a shooting groove looking onward.

And Nance had a couple nice interior plays, too, one being a rolling dunk after a pass from Damyean Dotson, and another being a drive where he put his much-improve handle to use.

Anyway, while I know it was just one game, with how Nance closed out last season as a shooter/scorer, this outing at the Grizzlies could tap into that sort of thing more from Jr. and we could see him have more of a feel for getting himself going, too.

And while I’m obviously not expecting this sort of performance from him in coming games in the interim for Love, Nance is seemingly beginning to figure out how to get his teammates going, which he’s done so well, but also himself, as Fedor hit on.

We’ll ultimately see how Jr. does going forward.