Cleveland Cavaliers Player Of the Week for March 21-27

While the Cleveland Cavaliers have been in the thick of the Eastern Conference Playoff race for the majority of the season, they have, at least for the moment, lost their grip on one of the six guaranteed playoff spots.

The Cavaliers’ slide down the standings this week because of their losses to the Los Angeles Lakers, Toronto Raptors, and Chicago Bulls.

Despite the defeats, we still saw some solid performances from members of the Wine and Gold.

Starting with the game this past Monday against the visiting Lakers, the defense was non-existent for most of the game. However, Cavaliers All-Star point guard Darius Garland did everything he could to try and propel Cleveland to victory.

In 41 minutes, Garland scored a team-high 29 points and dished out 17 masterful assists. Garland has proven he can score from anywhere on the floor, but seeing him take a leap as a passer this season has been remarkable.

Moving on over to Thursday’s game in Toronto, the Cavaliers fell behind early and couldn’t entirely fight their way back. Aside from Garland putting up another double-double, Lauri Markkanen was a significant contributor with a team-best 20 points. Lamar Stevens also had an impressive evening, as he contributed 16 points and six rebounds.

With Cleveland struggling to find offense at times, Stevens stepped up this past week by averaging 15 points in his last four games. While Stevens is more known for his defense and overall scrappiness on both ends of the floor, anything he can provide in the scoring column is a nice bonus.

Going to Saturday night’s game against the Bulls, Cleveland nearly overcame an 18-point halftime deficit to take down their Central Division foes. Despite the loss, Garland again led the Wine and Gold in scoring, as he poured in 28 points despite connecting on just 1-of-7 shots from behind the arc.

Playing off that and other performances, Garland was the Cleveland Cavaliers Player of the Week for March 21-27.

While Stevens has been a pleasant surprise this past week, the Cavaliers Player of the Week award has to go to Darius Garland. If the Cavaliers miss the playoffs, it isn’t for Garland’s lack of effort.

Though his three-point shooting has taken a dip (27.4 percent in the last 10 games), Garland has to shoulder a ton of the offensive load and sometimes has to attempt to bail the Cavs out late in the shot clock. Over his past 10 games, Garland is scoring 26 points per game and is dishing out 10.8 assists per contest.

With a spot in the play-in tournament locked up, the hope is that Cleveland can weather the storm, get Jarrett Allen back, and go on a bit of a run.

And while the recent slide by the Cavaliers is disappointing, let’s remember that a year ago, many of us would have been thrilled if we had been told Cleveland locked up a play-in tournament spot.