Cavs’ Isaac Okoro enters COVID-19 protocols; team must step up again

The Cleveland Cavaliers have been cruising lately, having won five straight contests. They’ve also done so in convincing fashion, having had their best five-game point differential (plus-100) since December of 2008, as h/t ESPN Stats & Info.

Now, part of that has been because the opponents they’ve played lately, such as the Houston Rockets on Wednesday, and Miami Heat on Monday, have been shorthanded.

I have to acknowledge that, but as the club has gotten healthier, they have not really left games to question. For still a relatively young group, that’s been impressive, too.

Unfortunately for the Wine and Gold though, as was the case for much of November for Kevin Love and Lauri Markkanen, Isaac Okoro recently entered the NBA’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols. The team announced that on Thursday afternoon and Kelsey Russo of The Athletic reported that news first.

The Cavs have been a resilient bunch this season, and they’ll need to have that next man up mentality once again, regarding this Okoro news.

The Cavaliers have had to endure plenty of injuries/absences to key guys already throughout the season, as Love and Markkanen had near-three-week absences, Evan Mobley previously missed four games due to an elbow sprain and is currently dealing with hip soreness, and Jarrett Allen missed three games because of illness.

Virtually every legitimate rotational contributor has missed time at some point, and in Okoro’s case, he missed seven games early on in relation to a hamstring strain. Now, we’ll have to see if other Cavaliers will be placed into health and safety protocols in days to come here, and among the league and society in general, it’s evident that the spread and/or the variants out there have had a huge impact of late.

And in regards to Okoro specifically, this definitely is a blow to him and the team, as while the opponents were not world beaters, per se, Okoro, who has had 9.3 points per game this season, was really getting it going offensively, to pair with his defense.

In Okoro’s last five games, he had 16.6 points per contest, was generating his share of offense in the transition game, and had knocked in 55.6 percent of his three-point attempts, mostly via catch-and-shoots.

Putting it plainly, with Collin Sexton out clearly too, this news is pretty rough, as Okoro had been in a nice groove recently, and heading into the upcoming three-game road trip, had been establishing a much better rhythm.

It’s unclear as of right now how long Okoro could be out for, and in the mean time, I’d imagine that we could see Cleveland run Darius Garland and Ricky Rubio starting in the backcourt until Okoro returns, or with Cedi Osman at the 2. We’ll again have to see if other Cavs end up entering protocols in days to come. And given this report from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski from Thursday, it’s evident that there’s been a big surge here in December around the league.

Furthermore, Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium reported on Wednesday how there they have been talks between the league and the NBPA centered on increased testing protocols to come here here for practice and game days around the league, given the recent spike.

We’ll again have to see on the Okoro absence front, but as they’ve done throughout the season, the Cavaliers will have to overcome this and step up as a team in days/potentially weeks to come.

It’s not a certainty currently whether Okoro was a close-contact, or tested positive, at least at the moment; we’ll keep an eye out for those reports.

Hopefully the 20-year-old recovers, if he contracted COVID-19, relatively quickly. This was tough news for him and the team.