Good morning. It\u2019s Sunday, November 30. The Cleveland Cavaliers are 12-8. Let\u2019s talk about Darius Garland.<\/p>\n
The First Sip<\/p>\n
Darius Garland played a career-high 75 games last season. Staying healthy for a full year allowed Garland to play the best basketball of his career. He hit a groove early in the season and helped Cleveland win 64 games along the way.<\/p>\n
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Through 20 games of the current season, the Cavaliers have already lost eight games, and Garland has missed twice as many games as he did the previous season.<\/p>\n
Things are bad.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s possible that things feel worse than they are. After all, the Cavs are only two games back from the second-best record in the conference, even though it feels like they\u2019re currently buried six feet under. A single week of basketball could put them back in first place \u2014 with only 3.5 games keeping them away from the Detroit Pistons.<\/p>\n
My point is, there\u2019s a lot of season left, and the Cavs aren\u2019t that far behind anyone else in the East. 62 games stand between now and the playoffs.<\/p>\n
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How many of them will Garland appear in?<\/p>\n
Cleveland has struggled without him. The Cavs have an 8-6 record in Garland\u2019s absence and have gone 4-2 with him. Garland is providing a +5.3 boost<\/a> to their net rating when he\u2019s on the court. Most of all, the Cavs are scoring nearly 10 points more<\/a> per 100 possessions with Garland. That\u2019s life-saving production for a team that ranks 16th in offensive rating<\/a> this season.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t have to tell you what Garland brings to this team. Efficient shooting. Elite playmaking. A floor general who can make everyone else around him better. Donovan Mitchell might be an electric scorer but Garland brings the type of stuff this team is sorely missing.<\/p>\n The problem is, DG has only been available for six games. Six games that have seen him hit the floor and wince in pain every time he steps the wrong way on his injured toe. Reintegrating any player back from an injury is a challenge. But I don\u2019t even know where to begin with Garland\u2019s current situation. How do you hit your stride when every other step is a limp?<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure how or when the Cavs will turn this season around. All I know is it won\u2019t happen until Garland is back in the lineup for more than a few games at a time. Here\u2019s to hoping that process is underway.<\/p>\n Links of the Day<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good morning. It\u2019s Sunday, November 30. The Cleveland Cavaliers are 12-8. Let\u2019s talk about Darius Garland. The First…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[8174,27494,4576,13054,355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-322293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","9":"tag-darius-garland","10":"tag-detroit-pistons","11":"tag-donovan-mitchell","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}