Another year, another Cleveland Cavaliers season with early-year ups and downs. The team has made some noise in the NBA, starting the season off 9-5 through their first 14 games with their grit and grind style of play. Head coach J.B. Bickerstaff seems to have everyone bought in and it seems as if competitive Cavs basketball is back.
With the good news out of the way, let’s look at the bad of the season. What many believe to be the heart and soul of this team, Collin Sexton suffered a torn meniscus injury against the New York Knicks and as of Friday, it was reported that he underwent season-ending surgery.
This in turn of all other injuries to key players has led to the team dropping their last 3 games, with games against the Brooklyn Nets and Pheonix Suns coming up.
Sexton’s injury is a devastating one with him set to become a restricted free agent this offseason. All we can do right now is wish the Young Bull a speedy recovery.
With Sexton out, there becomes a glaring need for an added scoring punch as well as other things on the offensive end. Not only was Sexton our best downhill attacker, but also had success in dribble drives that helped to free up shooters as well as leading to dump-offs. We also lost our go-to scorer in the clutch and a secondary playmaker.
It’s now up to the team to try and make up what is lost with Sexton’s injury.
With that in mind, here, we will look at three Cavs players who must step up offensively with the Young Bull out for the rest of the season.
We’ll get into that now with the first guy that comes into the forefront in that realm.