Heading into the Cleveland Cavaliers‘ game on Wednesday at the Utah Jazz, it was a game where I thought Cleveland could maybe pull out a win if they shot the lights out, or Utah was simply off.
Now, it was evident that Rudy Gobert would be out in the game, as he’s currently in COVID-19 health and safety protocols, and the Jazz have had issues in the past few games without him. Utah lost to the Detroit Pistons, who are in the beginning stages of a full-rebuild (Cavs fans can relate in recent seasons) on Monday, and the Indiana Pacers on Saturday, who seem at a crossroads.
Even with that playing out of late, and Utah being without a bunch of players in health and safety protocols, a few of which were notable rotational contributors, I did still have my concerns about the Jazz’s shooting among key guys. That was with them being first in the league in offensive rating and true shooting rate coming in; they were off here, with them shorthanded, and shot just 40.0 percent.
Plus, Darius Garland had reportedly been dealing with back soreness in Cleveland’s narrow win at the Sacramento Kings on Monday, and Rajon Rondo was out versus Utah with a hamstring injury. That’s a situation that could be tricky with hamstring injuries, for context, and it’s not surprising that with Cleveland’s injuries, they’re reportedly still seeking backcourt help via trade.
In looking at this Jazz game, in particular, though, it was nice to see the Wine and Gold rebound after a disappointing loss at the Golden State Warriors on Sunday and an up-and-down performance at Sacramento on Monday.
Cleveland would cruise in the second half on Wednesday, and even with Gobert out, to go with Hassan Whiteside, Rudy Gay, and with Joe Ingles getting ejected, it was still a way for Cleveland to get back on track.
So with that in mind, what was the biggest takeaway, and on the flip side, what aspect of the game for Cleveland, or a particular performer, perhaps underwhelmed?
We’ll get into those things here, regarding the Cavs stud and dud in this big W in Utah.
There were a few clear candidates for the Cavs stud, but ultimately, I went the overall team-first route.
Cavs stud: Ball movement
Throughout this season, the Cavaliers have benefited from having great ball movement often in their games, and it’s played into them getting plenty of guys quality looks from ball swings, leading to open perimeter shots and/or mismatches.
In this Jazz game, that was fully on display. Cleveland had 28 assists at Utah to 13 turnovers, shot 53.1 percent, and the Wine and Gold were led by Darius Garland, who had his first career triple-double with 11 points, a career-high 15 assists, to go with 10 rebounds.
“DG the PG” was a key cog in getting guys such as Jarrett Allen and Lauri Markkanen a number of outstanding looks in the game, largely helping them have 12 and 20 points, respectively, and Markkanen, who has been off, was 4-of-5 from three. And Garland, Lamar Stevens (who had a career-best 23 points on 10-15 shooting), Kevin Love and the group in general essentially put this one on ice it seemed during at one point, a 21-0 run in the third quarter.
It was good to see the Cavs taking advantage of drive-and-kicks, plays in secondary transition after effective defense, and we saw some big-time passing from the likes of Evan Mobley, including some big-to-big feeds. Mobley had seven assists in this game, and was just consistently taking what the Jazz defense, shorthanded or not, gave him.
The Cavaliers will need Rondo to get healthier, obviously, but with the bigs involved in getting the ball rolling, and with Garland balanced, the Cavs are more than capable of ball movement like this, and if Markkanen and others are on, they can beat any team on any given night. That’s regardless of circumstances.
Alright, so even with this 111-91 victory, we do still have to touch on a Cavs dud from this one. So we’ll get into that next.
Cavs dud: Cedi Osman
I have to give Cedi Osman his flowers for this play this year. I had been critical of Osman in recent years in plenty of that time, and last year, it was a forgettable one for him. I have to cut him some slack though, as he shifted to mostly a bench role, and his role had inconsistencies, so it wasn’t all on Cedi; the Cavs’ injury woes and lack of legit playmaking depth didn’t help.
And this season, he’s rebounded in a defined bench shooting role often. He’s knocked in a career-best 38.7 percent from three this year, and in 23.2 minutes per outing, has had 11.3 points per contest, which I don’t discount. It was unfortunate for him and the team when he, similarly to a number of others, was placed into health and safety protocols.
However, in this one, objectively, this was more along the lines of Cedi offensively that is, from last season, shooting-wise. He’s my dud for the Cavaliers from this Jazz win, as he was not showing the touch he has in games a bunch off the bench this season, as he was 3-of-12 from the field, and 1-of-7 from three.
Plenty of those looks seemed to be in-rhythm, and I give him his credit for getting to some of those looks from good movement off-ball; the misses were just rough to watch, and this was one of those off shooting nights for him. I do think with this role clarification this season, though, it’s not much to really react too harshly about.
Hopefully Osman can rebound in upcoming games, and the next couple to wrap up this Western road trip at the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder can help in that regard.