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

The Cavs still need Garland to capitalize at points in games himself, as a counter

This season, he’s taken another step as a PnR scorer it seems following the early batch of games, and with him healthier now, he’s again been able to utilize change-of-pace, and it’s led to him getting inside at times effectively in PnR. And Cleveland will need him to balance that, once again, between hitting bigs and creating for himself to keep dropping opponents guessing.

Along with that, though, it’s still imperative that in some stretches, and perhaps in crunch time, if Garland gets favorable matchups, he needs to take advantage with pull-ups and step backs when opposing bigs are switched out on to him.

He’s done a solid job of capitalizing in those situations early on, as evidenced by him placing in the 63rd percentile thus far as a PnR scorer, per Synergy Sports. I also applaud Garland for showing more of a willingness of late to take on contact, and use ball fakes to at times generate free throws overall, even with that being not nearly as often thus far in PnR.

Anyhow, there’s been a nine-game sample size, which is hardly a sizable sample, but so far, the PnR scoring from DG early in Year 3 has been promising, and to reiterate, with Sexton out, we’ll need to see some more of that from Garland.

The third-year lead guard is capable of taking it up a notch, fortunately, and him continuing to round out his PnR game could help these Cavaliers keep things moving forward, even without Cleveland’s most gifted scorer.