Cedi Osman once again gives Cavs energy in return vs. Jazz in close L

The Cleveland Cavaliers had been riding a four-game winning streak leading into Sunday’s matinee matchup against the Utah Jazz, who are one of the top offensive teams in the NBA.

Cleveland had an up-and-down performance really, and Utah in much of the game had it an open floor, high tempo contest. The Cavaliers did help get back to their style more in the fourth quarter, fortunately, and that led to them working their way back into it after the Jazz were making shot after shot for much of it.

The Cavaliers, who were down by five heading to halftime, despite a big run in the fourth, couldn’t quite close the deal, and lost by one but it was a valiant effort to claw their way in it down the stretch, as KJG’s John Suchan expressed. The Cavs were down by 15 at one point in the fourth, and tied it up at 97 all. Cleveland, for context, did outscore Utah 26-18 in the closing stanza, and not discounting work from other guys, such as Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen, one guy that helped give them energy was Cedi Osman.

Osman, who missed the past three games because of lower back soreness, and had two absences because of a similar issue/spasms shortly before that, was a nice bench player to have again here. Hopefully Osman can get himself healthy game-to-game, and we’ll see there, of course.

To reiterate though, the energy Osman provided made a difference for the Cavs, and aided their comeback efforts in the fourth.

Osman once again gave the Cavs energy in his return versus the Jazz on Sunday.

Osman and Ricky Rubio, for what it’s worth, were very productive off the bench for the Cavaliers; Rubio had 15 points, to go with four rebounds and two assists. He also had a block and a steal, and the bucket-getting in the second half gave the club a lift.

Osman was a welcomed addition back for the Wine and Gold, as we hit on, however.

He had 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting in 21 minutes, including him going 2-of-5 from three, and in the fourth quarter, Osman’s two steals gave the team a jolt. One led to him going down for an easy dunk in transition, too, thanks to great anticipation from him, whereas the other on Joe Ingles eventually led to an assist from him and a Rubio interior make from nice touch.

Circling back, the Cavaliers couldn’t quite get the job done, and the Jazz ended up forcing Garland, even with how he had it going with 31 points in the game, into a very tough look at the end. Cleveland ended up losing 109-108, thanks in large part to Utah having 20 made threes on 48 attempts, a 41.7 percent clip.

Regardless, it was great to see this Wine and Gold squad stay the course, and eventually they got some key stops in the fourth to get themselves back into things. It’s not as if the effort wasn’t there in this one overall, either; Utah is just such a difficult squad to guard, and it’s not like the Cavaliers play them often.

And while this was far from the Cavs’ best contest, whether or not their four-game winning streak was snapped, I was impressed with the mental toughness of this group, and a key takeaway again was how Osman provided energy.

He’s done so throughout the season, too, and though I do still believe we should expect him to come down a bit, with his inconsistencies in recent seasons, he has settled into a clear bench shooter role, and it’s been huge for him. To drive it home, I’d expect their to be streakiness, but Osman so far this season has hit threes at a 43.0 percent clip on 5.9 attempts per game, in 22.2 minutes of action.

He’s given the Cavs a spark off the bench, and against the Jazz, he did just that once again, and it was good to see. I don’t discount how he’s been able to do a similar thing on numerous occasions this season, in which he’s made 17 appearances thus far.

Hopefully Cedi is mostly healthy from here, but we’ll have to see how upcoming games go, in relation to his back/potential soreness.