Taking a look at the Cavs Player of the Week for March 29-April 5

Coming off of a dominant win on Monday versus the San Antonio Spurs, the Cleveland Cavaliers finished the week at another suboptimal 1-3 record. Cleveland struggled early on in the week in this past one, but they look to build on their momentum from Monday’s blowout win in San Antonio.

A few different Cavaliers had very good games this past week. Matthew Dellavedova and Kevin Love both made their returns and made an immediate impact on the squad. Neither is our Player of the Week, but both played solid in somewhat limited minutes.

New Cav, Isaiah Hartenstein, who was acquired in the JaVale McGee trade near the deadline, had a solid week where he played a lot of minutes in Jarrett Allen’s absence (concussion). Hartenstein, although fouling has been an issue, did rebound and score the ball at a high level, but also showed off his playmaking skills and racked up seven assists in this past week’s game against Utah.

That Utah loss on March 29 was a blowout one, of course, 114-75, albeit, the Cavaliers were severely shorthanded, and playing against the team with the NBA’s best record.

In terms of other notable Cavs, Collin Sexton did what he usually does, and scored the ball at a high clip all week. Young Bull is averaging 23.9 points per game on the season, and had 23.0 in that slate, along with 3.3 assists and 1.8 steals per contest.

But, for the latest slate for the Cavs from outings March 29-April 5, the player who gets the nod for our Player of the Week is Sexton’s other half in the backcourt.

That player is point guard Darius Garland.

Darius Garland had a great week where he shined in Monday’s game against the Spurs. Garland scored a team and career-high 37 points on 14-22 shooting. He also tossed in seven assists to go with a high-efficiency scoring night. Garland shot 5-10 from three that night as well, and he did all that in only 30 minutes played.

In the first game of this past week, Garland had a nice 18-5-5 game against the Jazz where he shot 50.0 percent from the field; again, the end result was far from stellar for the club, though.

But, like most of the other Cleveland Cavaliers players from this past week, he had a game where he struggled immensely.

Against the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday, Garland was three-of-eight from the field with only six points. He also struggled to hold on to the ball and had seven turnovers. The only real positive was that he passed for eight assists on the night.

On Saturday’s game at the Miami Heat, Garland had a solid 12-point, eight-assist night, and did register two steals. He cut down on the turnovers while he continued to show his considerable improvement as a playmaker and passed the ball well.

And of course, his 37-point night where he lit up the box score was quite the performance, and showed that he could at some point be a star in the league if he keeps developing.

That game may have shown fans around the league that the Garland-Sexton duo can co-exist, and combined with the great strides Garland has taken throughout the season factored in, at least.