Cavs: Darius Garland’s PnR play has been great, and that must continue

Last season, we saw the real Darius Garland stand up for the Cleveland Cavaliers. After a rookie year that was underwhelming, because of numerous reasons, he had 17.4 points and 6.1 assists per contest, and the star potential popped.

Thus far this season, while it is still early in Year 3 for him, after a bit of a slow start, Garland has rounded into form once again. The somewhat slow start for him likely had plenty to do with Garland missing two games due to a left ankle sprain, and it feasibly took him two or so games following that to get his rhythm back. It looks to be now, even before Sunday’s win over the New York Knicks.

In the past five games, Garland has had 16.6 points and 6.4 assists per outing, and has canned 52.0 percent of his 5.0 three-point attempts per game in that span. Now, Garland does, and the team for that matter, need to clean up the turnovers some, as in that stretch, he’s still had 3.8 giveaways per outing.

For what he brings though, and I give Ricky Rubio some of the same treatment in a playmaking sense, I’d take the vastly more positive, when it comes to the timing and vision, than negative, with some turnovers.

Nonetheless, at this point, with Collin Sexton out for an extended period, and we’ll have to see regarding the potential need for surgery, Cleveland might need Garland to pick it up a bit more, even with him being such an integral player.

He could potentially do so, though, but other guys can help still, notwithstanding, such as Dylan Windler and Lauri Markkanen and Kevin Love when they’re back (COVID-19 health and safety protocols).

And we of course know that Rubio will continue to be a key player for the Cavs, whether he does move into more of a starting role or not.

In any case, a general takeaway from Garland’s play early on, which has been great to see, has been his pick-and-roll effectiveness, and how he’s balancing the playmaking and scoring element.

Cavs: Garland’s PnR play has been great, and it’s paramount that continues.

We’ll examine the continued PnR playmaking growth exhibited from Garland first.