Larry Nance Jr. is Cavs MVP so far at near-quarter poll

Nance has been a key Cavs defensive playmaker

The Cavaliers, although the Celtics hanging 141 points on them on Sunday didn’t help it, and their double-overtime game in which the Nets had 135 points didn’t, either, currently have the league’s sixth-best defensive rating. That’s a tad bit of a difference than what has typically been the case recently, as Cleveland had the league’s worst defensive rating the past two seasons.

And Bickerstaff deserves his credit for aiding those efforts, along with the likes of Drummond, who has been a key interior presence in terms of shot altering, and he’s had 1.4 blocks per outing, too.

Plus, Collin Sexton has been much improved on-ball and Damyean Dotson in his minutes-share has been solid, both in traditional perimeter defense and in zone, and JaVale McGee has aided the interior defense.

And though LeBron James was otherworldly often guarded by him on Monday, Isaac Okoro has more than held his own in tough matchups game-to-game, and made James Harden work for everything in those two Nets games.

That said, Nance has been Cleveland’s most impactful defender, from my perspective. As of through Tuesday, Nance is leading the league in total steals and deflections, per NBA.com’s player hustle tracking data.

His timing in getting his hands into passing lanes and also picking off passes to cutters/shooters has been invaluable for Cleveland getting early offense, especially with how the Cavs have often been so depleted in terms of key regular rotation bodies.

Cleveland has led the NBA to this point in terms of opponent turnovers per contest, and Nance’s impact/feel off the ball has been a huge reason for that, along with him being a great defensive communicator.

On-ball, he’s done a solid job as well, and by and large, has done a commendable job containing drivers and his lateral quickness has helped him deter pull-up threats. His post-up defense hasn’t been great, but the volume with those situations isn’t going to be high, really, anyway, so I wouldn’t nitpick on that.

Anyway, what is clear, is that Nance has been Cleveland’s top defender, all things considered, to this point, and his feel in the team sense has paid dividends for the Wine and Gold. So again, hopefully, he can get mostly healthy fairly soon.

We’ll move on to the offensive end next.