1 stud and 1 dud for Cavs in their win over the Bucks

Cavs dud: Lauri Markkanen

With the good, you have to take the bad. It’s hard to find fault in a commanding win, especially for a team on a 6-game winning streak. With that said, the Cavs’ dud of the game was Lauri Markkanen. For the season, Lauri’s play has been filled with inconsistency, an issue that has plagued him for his entire career.

Looking at the Finnisher’s season, he has five games with 9 or fewer points and five games with 20 points or more. Lauri is shooting a career-low in field goal percentage while taking the third-most shots per game of his career. He’s also shooting a career-low in three-point percentage while attempting the most threes of his career.

In the Bucks game, Markkanen had just 8 points, shooting 3-of-14 from the field and missing all seven of his three-point attempts. Markkanen also only had 2 rebounds in 29 minutes of play. As a 7-footer playing against the Bucks’ bench unit, 2 rebounds just isn’t ideal.

Again, it’s hard to find fault in a win but if the Cavs want to make a deep run, Markkanen will have to improve on his consistency and knock down his shots. Averaging 8.8 points over the team’s last four games, Markkanen could simply be in a slump like most shooters go into.