Darius Garland played in two games for the Cleveland Cavaliers in their opening round sweep of the Miami Heat. The Cavaliers won those games, both at home, by an average of 15 points.
Garland then missed the next two games, on the road in Miami, and Cleveland routed the Heat. They won by an average of 46 points, for the greatest two-game drubbing the league has ever seen and an historically strong sweep of Miami.
We have discussed how the Cavaliers have a superpower that few other teams have -- honestly, only the Oklahoma City Thunder can claim to share it -- in that they have elite depth ready to fill in for any absence. Cleveland lost an All-Star and never looked back.
It begs the question, however -- the question that no Cavaliers fan truly wants to speak out loud, but that most of them are thinking quietly to themselves. It's a question that could have significant ramifications for how Kenny Atkinson coaches the rest of the playoffs and how the organization conducts itself moving forward.
The question? Are the Cleveland Cavaliers a better team without Darius Garland in the lineup?
Are the Cavaliers better without Darius Garland?
There is no denying that the Cavaliers have been better without Garland over the last four games to start the playoffs. After finishing +16 in a 21-point win in Game 1, he was -2 in 32 minutes in the team's Game 2 victory; the Cavaliers outscored MIami by 11 points in the 16 minutes he sat on the bench. He then missed two blowout victories.
For the series, the Cavaliers have a +4.7 net rating when Garland is on the court, and a mind-boggling +44.8 net rating when he is off (garbage time excluded). In those 76 minutes the offense is humming at 138.6 points per 100 possessions, which would have blown away the rest of the league this year; equally impressive is the defense, allowing just 93.8 points per 100 possessions.
Four games is obviously a small sample size, however. What about for the entire season? Let's look at how the Cavaliers performed without Garland, and specifically when Donovan Mitchell, Ty Jerome, or both took the court.
For the entire season, the Cleveland Cavaliers had a robust +9.9 net rating (again, garbage time excluded) when Darius Garland took the court. He played 2,091 such minutes, and the Cavaliers had an elite offense 9.4 points better than their opponents, and a defense just a hair better than their opponents.
When Garland was off the court, in 1,330 minutes, the Cavaliers had an even better net rating of +12.0. Their offense took a step back, but their defense surged forward to be 7.2 points per 100 possessions better than their opponents. There is a tiny bit of shooting luck baked in, but it's not significant.
When Garland played with Donovan Mitchell, the Cavs had a +9.3 net rating. That grew to +10.5 when Garland played without Mitchell, but was even better at +12.9 when Mitchell played without Garland.
Add in Ty Jerome and everything is consistent. The Cavaliers are good with Garland and Jerome at +9.5, but even better with Mitchell and Jerome at +11.2. Garland without either is a really good +11.1, but better with only Mitchell (+14.7) and even better with only Jerome (+22.8). It should be noted, while Jerome has played a solid sample size of 207 minutes, opponents shot a frigid 29.7 percent from deep in those minutes, something Jerome almost certainly has very little to do with.
One final statistic to include in the analysis. In 108 minutes when the Cavaliers played without any of the three of Garland, Mitchell or Jerome, the Cavaliers were a truly abysmal -16.2 points per 100 possessions worse than their opponents.
The Verdict: The Cavaliers might be better without Garland
It's impossible to look at those numbers, coming from a season when Darius Garland was a deserving All-Star, should be on an All-NBA team (but probably just misses out) and played extremely well, and not conclude that the Cavaliers are better without him on the court.
There are a mountain of caveats, however, that should temper that conclusion. The first is that while we have a full season of data, that's not a massive sample size in the grand scheme of things. Plenty of variables go into that, and Ty Jerome in particular has one great season under his belt.
Also, it's not as if the Cavaliers were bad with Garland on the court. Over the course of the season they were extremely good when he played; they just happened to be even better when he didn't and one of their other high-octane guards did.
A large part of that can be explained by another contextual detail: Darius Garland plays most of his non-Mitchell minutes with Jarrett Allen, a very good player; Donovan Mitchell plays most of his non-Garland minutes with Evan Mobley, the Defensive Player of the Year and someone who will receive MVP votes.
In fact, when Mitchell and Mobley play together without Garland, the team has a +13.3 net rating. When Garland and Mobley play together without Mitchell, they are an even better +16.4. The common denominator might not be Garland; it might be Mobley!
Add it all up, and what can we conclude? Three things.
First, the Cavaliers are a better team for having three elite offensive guards. They can mix and match any two of them and have 48-straight minutes of incredible offense. Even when one of those three is on the court without the others, the offense sings.
Second, Darius Garland is a defensive liability. With Sam Merrill improving on that end and Georges Niang in Atlanta, the only two real liabilities in the rotation are Garland and Jerome. Likely due to his high rate of steals, Jerome has been a better defender this season, even when you remove 3-point shooting luck. Garland is the worst defensive player in the Cleveland rotation.
Therefore, when Garland is off the court, the Cavaliers improve defensively. That may or may not balance out the loss of his offense, especially when you can merely plug in another high-octane guard. But the success of lineups with just Mitchell or Garland and two-way wings at the 2 and 3 speaks to the versatility and upside of a variety of lineups on this Cavs roster.
Finally, the Cavaliers might just be better if Darius Garland was in a smaller role. If the team increased the minutes for Ty Jerome and decreased the minutes for Garland, all of the data other than "status" in the league suggests that the team would perform at a higher level.
Does that mean they should do it? Probably not. Garland has proven himself an excellent clutch player, and he objectively had a better offensive season than Mitchell this year; that matters. Yet the Cavaliers are at their best when they aren't playing two small guards together in the backcourt, and at full strength they have the personnel to make that happen.
Those are difficult realities for head coach Kenny Atkinson to wrestle with, and if the Cavs fall short in the playoffs they may raise difficult questions for this summer. There is a reason teams with two small guards don't win championships in the NBA.
Can the Cavaliers buck the trend? Can they strike the right balance? Will Garland's injury be an easy out for the coaching staff to decrease his role? Would that even be the right move?
The numbers paint a picture: the team is good with Garland and great without him. The application of that data is much more nuanced and more difficult to parse out, and the Cavs need to do just that as the pressure ratchets up in the crucible of the playoffs.