Cleveland Cavaliers: Collin Sexton’s passing is coming along

I know it’s going to sound like a broken record initially here, but it’s been proven that Collin Sexton can put the ball in the basket. The third-year guard is again leading the Cleveland Cavaliers in scoring this season, and currently is doing so with 25.2 points per game on 61.3 percent true shooting; last season, he did with 20.8 points per outing.

Sexton has picked up where he left off last season, in which he closed out what would turn out to be the end of 2019-20 for Cleveland, and had 24.2 points per contest on 50.3 percent shooting in his last 25 games. In that span, he hit 45.2 percent of his three-point attempts per contest, too.

Sexton did miss five games because of a left ankle sprain, and would’ve seemingly been seven had Cleveland’s back-to-back scheduled for Jan. 17 and 18 at the Washington Wizards had not been postponed due to COVID-19 issues within the Wizards, but he’s been a flatout bucket.

And hopefully Sexton, who seemed a bit hobbled in Wednesday’s win over the Detroit Pistons regarding his ankle, is okay; albeit he played throughout and had 29 points and somehow shot a scorching 10-of-14.

Looking back to last week for a quick bit, thanks to a 22-point explosion in the two overtime periods for Cleveland in their win over the Brooklyn Nets last Wednesday, Sexton had a career-best 42 points in that one, for further context.

Plus, even with it ending out in a blowout loss at the Boston Celtics on Sunday, Sexton set the Cavs record for consecutive 20-plus-point outings to begin a season at 10. That was after a 25-point effort in a Cavs W versus Brooklyn on Friday (Kevin Durant wasn’t playing, though).

All of that said, while we know Sexton is a certified bucket-getter, we shouldn’t gloss over his progression as a passer.

Sexton’s passing is coming along for the Cavs.

Sexton doesn’t have nearly the vision of Darius Garland, who leads Cleveland with 5.5 assists per outing (albeit hemissed eight games due to a right shoulder sprain), but Sexton has been improving in the passing realm.

In that aforementioned span leading into the prior novel coronavirus-induced hiatus/end of 2019-20 for Cleveland, he had 4.0 assists per contest. That wasn’t breaking any records, but it was more than his 3.0 assists per outing overall for his first two seasons, and this season, he’s carried that forward.

Currently, Sexton’s had 4.2 assists per game in Year 3, and his assist rate has been a solid 21.0 percent, and his turnover rate has been only 9.6 percent. Now, Garland missing nearly half the season to this season has played into that, however, the playmaking feel has improved for the Young Bull.

Him having a few rough outings turnover-wise in the past few, or at least in some stretches (he had five versus Detroit) didn’t highlight that low rate, but Sexton did rebound in the second half more so with his approach against the Pistons. And he did end out with five assists and frankly, definitely should’ve had a few more.

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But overall, Sexton has gotten bigs such as Andre Drummond, Larry Nance Jr. and JaVale McGee looks over-the-top and given them extra pass/dumpoff passes fairly regularly, and that’s aided the Cavs settled offense.

Granted, per recent reports, it would appear that McGee and Drummond could both could very well be dealt by the league’s deadline, and really sooner for McGee at least, with both expiring.

Either way, it’s apparent that Sexton has worked on getting bigs/rollers more involved, and I’d expect him to feed his share of over-the-top/dumpoffs to Jarrett Allen and Larry Nance Jr., who will assuredly get plenty of treatment for his right wrist sprain here, for instance.

That’s played out on the floor, whether it be via drives, attacking closeouts, or some in pick-and-roll, and that’s been really nice to see, even while we know Sexton’s primary role is to score.

In addition, though, Sexton’s feel for getting other perimeter threats involved, which we saw dating back to last season in the 2020 portion of the schedule, in particular, has been coming along gradually.

Although there were some rough turnovers in Cleveland’s blowout L to the Celtics, and he did four turnovers versus the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday, by and large, Sexton has seemed to have felt where his outlets have been more consistently game-to-game than previously.

That’s led to his share of a number of quality feeds to Cedi Osman, Isaac Okoro, Damyean Dotson and Nance, for example, and I’d imagine will for the likes of Garland, looking onward, Dylan Windler and Kevin Love, when he’s back. Taurean Prince has seemed to play pretty well off of Sexton early on, too.

Anyway, while I know again he doesn’t have the same passing feel as Garland, or Cedi Osman, to an extent, Sexton’s ball movement sense is coming along for the Cavs, and that’s been good to see.

That should only aid him more moving forward as a scorer, too, from a secondary playmaking perspective fairly often, at least.