The Cleveland Cavaliers Western Conference road trip made its way to the Alamo City on Friday night.
Having won three of the first four on this six-game road trip, the Cavaliers started the opening 12 minutes quite strongly at the San Antonio Spurs. The Wine and Gold scored 35 points and shot 56 percent from the floor, and also forced five San Antonio turnovers which they turned into seven points.
However, Cleveland’s lead shrunk as the second quarter went on, and toward the end of the frame, San Antonio even took the lead. But in the final 20 seconds, Cleveland got a putback from Lamar Stevens, and Darius Garland splashed a three-pointer from mid-court as the second quarter buzzer sounded.
San Antonio, a team, not known for shooting many three-pointers, came out of halftime and continued their impressive long-range shooting performance, as they connected on 5-of-9 from beyond the arc in the third quarter. Through the first 36 minutes, San Antonio hit 13-of-25 (52 percent) from deep, and took a two-point lead into the final quarter.
Cleveland’s defense came to play during the final frame, especially down the stretch. After a Dejounte Murray two-point shot tied the game at 103-103, the Cavaliers held the Spurs scoreless for over five minutes and only gave up six points over the final six minutes. More importantly, San Antonio only connected on 2-of-9 three-point shots.
Cleveland now heads to Oklahoma City for the final game of their road trip at the Thunder, and is looking to finish 5-1. But before we look ahead to that game, we’ll take a look at one stud and one dud from Friday night’s game.
We’ll first start with last night’s stud, who took over the final quarter and helped propel the Wine and Gold to victory.
Cavs stud: Darius Garland
After scoring 26 points in the first game of the road trip against the Portland Trail Blazers, Darius Garland scored no more than 12 points over the previous three games. However, Garland is taking his facilitating to another level, as he averages nine assists per game this month. He had been working through back soreness in the past few games, too.
Garland also did record the first triple-double by a Cleveland player since 2018 when he scored 11 points, and had career-highs in assists (15) and rebounds (10) against the Utah Jazz.
As for Friday night against the Spurs, Garland started out looking to score and led with 11 points in the opening frame, which included a trio of three-pointers. Garland would struggle in the second and third quarter, going just 2-of-9 from the floor for seven points.
But when the Cavaliers needed scoring in the fourth quarter, Garland rose to the occasion and poured in 14 points on 5-of-11 from the floor and a perfect 4-of-4 from the foul line. The fact that Garland was able to bounce back from a rough stretch during the middle portion of the game goes a long way. Garland is undeterred and does not shy away from the moment when his teammates need him.
Another positive takeaway from Friday night’s game is that Garland was able to dish out eight assists and only committed one turnover.
Garland has genuinely taken the leap this year, and every game looks more and more like the franchise point guard the front office had hoped he’d become when they selected him fifth overall in 2019.
Cavs dud: Lauri Markkanen
Looking at the statistics from the Spurs game, there was admittedly not one player that jumped out to fit in the “dud” category. Jarrett Allen had a plus-minus of minus-7, but he scored 17 points and grabbed 16 rebounds.
The player to best fit the “dud” title for Friday night’s game would be Lauri Markkanen, as he played over 33 minutes and only took five shots and scored just eight points.
Markkanen has been inconsistent when it comes to scoring. He only scored nine points on 2-of-6 shooting against the Golden State Warriors, but then scored 15 and 20 points the next two games, respectively.
While Markkanen has only connected on 31.8 percent of his three-point shots over the last 10 games, the more advanced numbers tell a different story.
Markkanen has the best plus-minus mark of the whole team in that 10-game span at +3.3. In addition to that, Markkanen has an offensive rating of 115.0 and a defensive rating of 109.6 for a 5.4 net rating. That 5.4 net rating is best among regular rotation players.
So yes, while Markkanen isn’t contributing consistently in the scoring column, he is still a factor while out on the court.
If the Cavaliers can get past Oklahoma City, they will reach eight games over .500, with five of their next seven games coming at home.
Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but the Cavaliers could be in a good playoff position when the All-Star break rolls around next month, as long as they can maintain their health and consistent play on both ends of the floor.