One stud and one dud from Cavs’ loss to Suns on Wednesday

The Cavs stud in this loss to the Suns: Jarrett Allen

Cleveland’s big man tandem of Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen is one of the better frontcourt duos in the NBA this season. Although Mobley is still making his way back from injury (granted, he is reportedly progressing tangibly), Allen is back in the lineup and seemingly picking up where he left off pre-illness.

As mentioned earlier, Allen paced the Cavaliers with 18 points in the first half and grabbed nine rebounds. While all of Allen’s shot makes came in the paint, it is impressive to see how Allen scores the ball, as he has a bevy of moves and isn’t afraid to go right at any defender in the paint.

But as we’ve come to know, Allen has made a name for himself on the defensive side of the ball too. Currently, Allen is tied for ninth amongst all NBA players in contested shots per game of players who have played in at least 10 games, per NBA.com’s hustle data.

Allen was at it again last night, and while he didn’t have one block, he did record eight contested shots. Overall, Allen would wind up scoring 25 points and grabbing 11 rebounds in the losing effort. Allen was an impressive 9-of-10 from the floor and even better made the most of his trips to the foul line and hit 7-of-9 from the charity stripe.

Once the Cavaliers get back their near-full complement of players (sans Collin Sexton though) and Allen gets his frontcourt mate back, Cleveland will hopefully convert some of these close losses into wins. But despite the losses, these types of strong performances by Allen are nice to see and he is undoubtedly doing his part to live up to the lucrative contract he signed this past offseason.