The Cleveland Cavaliers didn't just win on Saturday afternoon. Playing a desperate Miami team in South Beach, they took it to the Heat and ultimately won 124-87. Despite playing without the injured Darius Garland, six players all scored in double sigures to share the load and propel the team to victory.
One player in particular who stood out was guard Ty Jerome, who has been taking the playoffs by storm. He scored 13 points to go with a stunning 11 assists. It was a career-high in assists for Jerome, who was putting his teammates in position to succeed all night.
To illustrate just how impressive Jerome's game was, let's look at three jaw-dropping stats and why they scream that Jerome is the real deal.
Not since Spud Webb
Two stats in particular stand out from Ty Jerome's box score. The first is his assist to turnover ratio: 11-0. Jerome came in off the bench and dished 11 assists -- something only 13 players did all season -- and did so without a single turnover; only once all season did that happen, when Dennis Schroder had 11 assists and 0 turnovers off the bench for the Detroit Pistons.
But Jerome didn't just do this on a ho-hum game in March; he did so in the playoffs, in a game when the Cavaliers were without their All-Star starting point guard, on the road against a team with all sorts of culture and experience. And that is not only something no one has done this season; it's something that no one has done in 39 years.
In 1986, the Boston Celtics had the best team in the NBA. They had Larry Bird at the height of his powers, Kevin McHale and Robert Parrish across the back line, and they even had Bill Walton coming off the bench. In the second round they took on the Atlanta Hawks, who went down 3-0 in the series.
In a do-or-die Game 4 Dominique Wilkins went off for 37 points, and 6'5" guard Spud Webb came off the bench to dish 12 assists with 0 turnovers in 24 minutes, spiking the Hawks to victory to stay alive in their series.
Jerome couldn't be stopped
It's not only that Jerome was passing the ball ad nauseum like Rajon Rondo, but everything he did turned to gold for the Cavaliers. For the game, he finished with a +33 plus-minus in only 22 minutes, a truly special stat line.
Ty Jerome did that once this season, one of two Cavaliers to come off the bench and log a +33 or better. He did so against the Boston Celtics when the Cavs went into Boston in February and pulled out the win, while Caris LeVert did so against the outmatched Philadelphia 76ers.
In fact, only 11 times in the history of the franchise has a bench player ever been at least +33 in a game, led by -- you would never guess this -- Dion Waiters going +45 in a 2014 win over the Atlanta Hawks. Cedi Osman owns the second and third-best marks for the franchise.
If you look at the playoffs, the highest plus-minus a bench player has ever had for the Cleveland Cavaliers is +27, when Channing Frye went nuclear off the bench in 2016 for seven 3-pointers, in a game where the Cavs poured in 21 3-pointers.
Again, Jerome was +33. And what's more, De'Andre Hunter was an even better +34 off the bench. They completely eviscerated the Miami Heat. Expanding to the entire league, only 18 players in postseason history have had at least a +33 coming in off the bench.
Passing like crazy
Ty Jerome racked up 11 assists but played just 22 minutes in the game, essentially assisting a basket every two minutes he was on the court. Only four times this season did a player have at least 11 assists while playing 22 minutes or less; they averaged 3.3 turnovers per contest.
In playoff games, Jerome joins an exclusive club including just two others players. Nate McMillan had a whopping 15 assists in just 22 minutes for the Seattle SuperSonics in 1987, while someone named Lloyd Walton had 11 assists in 19 minutes for the Milwaukee Bucks in 1978.
The Cleveland Cavaliers absolutely destroyed the Miami Heat; they won by 37 points. They didn't necessarily need Ty Jerome's contributions to win the game. Yet it's hard to deny that Jerome's performance off the bench in a playoff game was uniquely special -- and the stats back it up.
In three postseason games Jerome has already erupted as a scorer and now erupted as a passer; he is earning himself money hand over fist on his next contract, and he is keying the Cavaliers to the brink of advancing.