When he’s back, Lauri Markkanen will help Cavs get off to better starts

The Cleveland Cavaliers have been finding ways to win, as we’re nearly at the All-Star break. The Cavaliers are 35-22 on the season, and even after a less than stellar performance in a loss on Saturday at the Philadelphia 76ers, the Cavs have still won seven of their last 10 games.

In the last week prior, it was evident that the club was missing Darius Garland, who missed those four outings then, and he wasn’t in action on Friday at the Indiana Pacers; lower back soreness has seemingly been a lingering issue for him for a number of weeks. He was in for two of three games this week, and his shot creation was on display, but there was, as expected, some rust.

The Wine and Gold have still largely been fine this month, though, and their recent trade acquistion of Caris LeVert from the Pacers will pay off for them, and lessen the workload for Garland, to some extent.

Nonetheless, while the Cavaliers have had their inconsistencies offensively, and it’ll take time to get LeVert further acclimated, the group has felt games out of late, and they’ve made timely runs when needed.

But, as we get more into the season here, and post-All-Star break play gets underway after this weekend’s All-Star festivities in Cleveland, it is clear that the team needs to get off to better starts.

Of course, getting healthier will only help, and fortunately, it seems that Lauri Markkanen is reportedly progressing, and when he’s back, that to me, from a shooting/spacing standpoint, can make a difference for the team’s starts.

It’s not overly concerning, but when Markkanen is back, that should help the Cavs’ start to games.

I don’t personally think it’s too much of an issue thus far, but Cleveland still misses Markkanen, to some degree, from a shooting and spacing perspective.

Dean Wade has honestly done fine, I believe, in starts, and defensively, he’s more capable on-ball than Markkanen. Wade has been decent offensively as well, he’s just not going to garner the shooting respect of Markkanen, and regardless of Garland recently missing games, not having Lauri in there I believe is part of the reason for Evan Mobley‘s struggles offensively of late.

In his last eight contests, Mobley has scored in single digits four times, and three of those instances have been in the last five games. He has been very impactful in other ways, and I think the All-Star break should help him make adjustments and recharge with the coaching staff, however, when Markkanen’s back, that could really provide a boost for this team.

We’ll have to see when that is the case, obviously, and Markkanen will take some time to get back in-rhythm when he’s in there; one would imagine that could be fairly soon post-All-Star break, given how he is reportedly progressing. Even still, the injury was on Jan. 22., so we’ll see, as it .

But when Markkanen is back, his presence as a shooter will help, and he was hitting 47.1 percent from three in his last nine games pre-injury, and was turning a corner. So to me, that should aid Mobley and Jarrett Allen, among others, and help get Cleveland going earlier.

The Cavaliers have had the second-worst first quarter point differential in the NBA among teams in their past 10 games at minus-5.9.

Now again, Garland recently being out didn’t help, and the Cavs still need to work through things with Caris LeVert, so this a bit nit-picky.

Just generally speaking though, it’ll pay dividends when Cleveland does get Markkanen back, and the Cavs should still be able to find ways to get Wade opportunities I would think, as a three-and-D-type guy for stretches.

Anyway, this again isn’t the biggest issue right now with Cleveland finding ways to get back into things and go on runs with their defense and bench guys. It just seems of late, being without Markkanen has been something that’s jumped out early on in contests, in my opinion.

Hopefully the Cavs can revisit this some over the All-Star break, and in time, get Lauri back in the fold.