Taking a look at the Cavs Player of the Week for Jan. 18-24

The Cleveland Cavaliers ended up having three games this past week of Jan. 18-24, of which we’ll take a look at here, not including Cleveland’s close loss in this case to the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday.

The Cavaliers bounced back this past week, finishing 2-1. Their Washington Wizards game for Monday, as was the first leg of what would’ve been their back-to-back was postponed due to COVID-19 issues within the Wiz, so the three games came against the Brooklyn Nets twice and the last being at the Boston Celtics.

The Cavaliers were able to take down the Nets Wednesday in a double-overtime game in Cleveland. For the Nets, it was their first game with their new Big Three of Kyrie Irving, James Harden and Kevin Durant all playing together which had all the attention you’d imagine, seemingly.

The Cavs then defeated the Nets again on Friday in Cleveland, although that time Kevin Durant sat out of the game (Achilles), albeit that was seemingly due to him playing 50 minutes in their first game.

The Celtics game was in Boston on Sunday and was a blowout loss 141-103, so there wasn’t much to get into regarding that.

The Cavaliers made it tough for the new Nets team and ended up spoiling their debut ultimately, though, and we’ll focus on that here.

This was the first time the Cavs seemed to really show the league, given the matchup, they’ve improved since last season, and Collin Sexton was able to show everyone his skill set and all of his potential to be a star in this league.

In that realm, Sexton easily earned the Cavs Player of the Week for Jan. 18-24.

In the first game against Brooklyn Collin showed up big with a career-high 42 points (22 of which came after the fourth quarter), five rebounds and five assists, and he ended up scoring 20 of the team’s final 23 points in the double-overtime win. And the only three points that weren’t his came off his assist to newcomer Taurean Prince who nailed a shot from deep.

Sexton went off at the end and hit many tough shots, including a highly-contested three-point shot to send the game into double-overtime, and followed it up with scoring nearly all the team’s points in the second overtime, hitting contested shots over and over.

This game gave Cavs fans a feeling they probably hadn’t experienced since LeBron James departed and was truly a spectacular moment for Sexton. He’s had great performances before, but to take over in this fashion in a spotlight game like that was special.

In the second game, it was a bit more emphatic with a final score of 125-113 favoring the Cavs.

In this one, Sexton finished with 25 points and a season-high nine assists. And, in his third game of the week, he finished with 13 points, two rebounds and 2 assists in the blowout loss.

Sexton has shown the fans and team promise that winning basketball isn’t as far as it may have seemed earlier this year. The team has shown growth throughout this season, but this past week Sexton put it fully on display and has truly budded into a dominant scoring guard. He embodies the culture and identity the Cavs want moving forward.

Sexton, though he did miss five games previously due to a left ankle sprain, did end up setting the Cavs’ record for the highest streak of scoring 20-plus point games to start a season with 10 after Friday’s W.

He truly had a dominant game Wednesday night and was easily the best player this week with one of the more special performances of the season throughout the league, as KJG’s Grant Puskar essentially highlighted.

In the two Brooklyn games, though, two other players that stood out that are worth noting are the newcomers via trade, from them, in Jarrett Allen and Taurean Prince. They both played well in those outings, and while that familiarity likely helped, they definitely were key.

Prince put up 17 points, seven rebounds and four assists in the first game, and had 14 points and three rebounds on Friday. He’s looked to be a solid defender since arriving and shot five-of-eight from deep in the games versus his former squad.

From there, Allen put up 12 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks in the first Brooklyn game, and then had 19 points and six rebounds in only 19 minutes on Friday. He’s clearly been productive thus far.

All things considered, though, Sexton was huge this past week (again not including the Lakers close loss on Monday) in those two wins, and he was the latest Cavs Player of the Week.