1 stud and 1 dud for Cavs in their win over the Wizards on Saturday

Coming into Saturday night’s game against the Washington Wizards, the Cleveland Cavaliers had been sliding a bit, having lost three games in a row. Cleveland lost to the Philadelphia 76ers and Atlanta Hawks in their last two games before the Cleveland-hosted All-Star festivities last weekend, and the Cavs had a disappointing loss to the Detroit Pistons on Thursday night.

The Cavaliers were without Darius Garland in that Pistons game, along with Caris LeVert, and those two were out in this last Washington game. Plus, Rajon Rondo suffered a right big toe sprain, and will be out for approximately two weeks, as of Friday.

Injuries have been something the Cavs, like many teams, have been dealing with throughout the season, though, and they’ll have to manage.

When looking back at this last Wizards game on Saturday, it was still clear that Cleveland has missed Garland in his absences, but in fairness, the Wizards were banged up as well. Washington will be without Bradley Beal (wrist surgery) for the rest of the season as of early this month, and Kristaps Porzingis has been out because of a right knee bone bruise.

As far as the game itself, one had to assume that the Cavaliers should be in good shape to land a victory here. This was the second leg of a back-to-back for the Wiz, and they had a wild and surely exhausting double overtime 157-153 loss to the San Antonio Spurs in D.C. on Friday.

Still, the Cavs had lost three straight contests coming in, and they needed to pick up a W here. And it was anything but easy, as the Wizards led most of the way, as the Cavs just couldn’t seem to break through, even with their being several stretches where it seemed they could.

Plenty of credit has to go to Washington’s defense, as the Cavaliers shot just 38.6 percent overall, and regardless of absences, Cleveland couldn’t get penetration for plenty of instances throughout.

On the offensive end, despite often tough defense, Kyle Kuzma was sensational, as he had another huge game with 34 points, and was a ridiculous 8-of-11 from three. He added 13 rebounds as well, to go with two blocks. Daniel Gafford added 14 points and seven rebounds, but his foul trouble led to him only in for 24 minutes.

For the Wine and Gold, it wasn’t easy; they did stay the course, on the plus side, and ground out a 92-86 win from defensive efforts, and the likes of Lauri Markkanen, despite a tough night, did make all six of the shots he connected on in the game in the second half. He was big down the stretch, and Jarrett Allen had 18 points, 14 rebounds and three steals, too. And Isaac Okoro was huge defensively.

So, anyway, let’s take a look at the standout for Cleveland here, and on the flip side, we’ll touch on the dud for them in this one, objectively.

The Cavs got the job done against the Wiz here, and while a few were logical candidates, one stud jumped out from this one.

First, we’ll highlight the Cavs stud against the Wizards from Saturday.