Cavs’ Rubio seems to be finding his footing again with playoffs on horizon
By Dan Gilinsky
It was a long road for Ricky Rubio to be able to get back on the court after more than a yearlong recovery for him coming off his ACL injury that cut short his past season. Rubio was a significant piece for the Cleveland Cavaliers last season following his offseason trade acquisition from the Minnesota Timberwolves, and even with the injury, it was understandable why he was brought back last summer in free agency.
Rubio has been gradually re-acclimated since making his season debut in mid-January, and has since appeared in 23 games over that time for the Cavaliers. On the year, he has had 5.6 points and 3.4 assists in 17.0 minutes per game.
Those splits are not nearly what he had for the Cavaliers last season, in which he had 13.1 points, 6.6 assists and 4.1 rebounds per outing, in what was 34 games before the injury. He had those numbers in what was mostly a supersub-type role, in 28.5 minutes per outing.
Point being, one had to know Cleveland wouldn’t be getting those splits from Rubio, who is in his age-32 season, and it was expected that he’d not be involved in both legs of back-to-backs for the Cavs. He was not in action in Cleveland’s last one, for example, in which the Cavaliers lost 118-109 to the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday night.
On a positive note, though, Rubio has given the Cavaliers more quality minutes in recent weeks, and while it took time, he does seem to be finding his footing, with the playoffs coming up next month.
Rubio still isn’t quite there yet, per se, but he looks to be more effective of late for the Cavs, with the playoffs on the horizon.
The workload for Rubio is going to be somewhat touch-and-go, given the team wanting to exercise caution with him coming off the aforementioned injury, and it was going to take time for him to get his rhythm and used to game speed again.
Now, there’s inherently been off nights from the veteran, given the circumstances. He’s connected on 28.1 percent of his three-point attempts so far in 2022-23, and 33.3 percent in his last seven appearances.
However, dating back to prior to the All-Star break, Rubio has seemingly gotten more comfortable, and his passing and defensive feel have helped of late.
The assist splits of 3.1 per contest in his last seven appearances don’t pop out, necessarily, but his chemistry with Cleveland’s bigs has continually gotten better, and Rubio’s vision in finding shooters has opened up quality looks for stretches. In the closing few weeks of the regular season here, those have been positive developments from him, and come playoff time, he could provide a solid playmaking boost in instances with Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell getting a breather, in that realm.
On the other end, Rubio’s taken some questionable fouls at times, sure. That said, he’s consistently aided the team defense with his activity in helping to deter entry feeds and drivers, and for a guard, his defensive rebounding positioning has often made a difference in closing out possessions in his minutes.
Further, his hand placement as a rotator is on-point, too, and generally, it’s his detail-oriented nature as a defender that leads to opponents overthinking things, potentially being forced into bad decisions or simply off-balance. On the season, he’s had 2.0 steals per-36 minutes, and a steal rate of 2.8 percent.
So, while he needs to find his shot more when the ball-swings come his way off-ball in spurts, it has been encouraging to see Rubio find his footing more as a ball-mover, pick-and-roll distributor and defensive presence. And he has mixed in some shot creation on fadeaways/runners, which could give the Cavs a spark in stretches come the postseason.
Hopefully Rubio keeps making progress, as he seems to have been more, particularly in post-All-Star play.