1 stud and 1 dud for Cavs in their loss to 76ers on Wednesday

Cavs stud: Isaac Okoro

Isaac Okoro was tasked with guarding James Harden and did a good job at slowing him down. This is not an uncommon task for Okoro as he normally guards the opposing team’s best perimeter player. Harden finished with 22 points and 11 assists but Okoro made him work for those numbers.

Harden shot okay from the field at 42% (5-of-12), however, he was an abysmal 16% from 3 shooting 1-of-6. Ice was practically one of the only bright spots from the Cavs in the first half, and without his contributions then, this might’ve been way out of reach for Cleveland the rest of the way.

Okoro finished the game with 17 points and 5 rebounds and splashing 3 three-pointers, going 3-of-5 from downtown. Okoro has struggled from long range this season being pretty unreliable but he came through tonight being the spot-up shooter in the corner the Cavs need him to be.

The former 5th pick out of Auburn was second on the team in scoring behind Garland and will realistically never put up glorious numbers but his impact is almost always felt on the defensive end.

Caris LeVert deserves some recognition as well scoring 15 points and dishing out 7 dimes off of the bench. This is just his second game back from a brief hiatus due to an injury and it is encouraging to see that he has accepted the role of a ball-handler off the bench and beginning to excel at it. Wednesday’s performance for him was a nice follow-up to a solid first game back on Monday.