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Darius Garland cocked his head to the facet, took a second, thought of.
An announcement had been offered to him and mentioned with a number of of his teammates earlier within the day, at morning shootaround forward of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ season opener one yr in the past — a binary proposition capping a dialog in regards to the progress of Garland’s recreation:
True or false: DG’s essentially the most underrated participant within the NBA.
It’s an announcement born of comprehensible however irritating circumstances. Line up subsequent to a perennial All-NBA candidate with a megawatt recreation like Donovan Mitchell, and other people may not essentially do not forget that Garland has (and arguably the next season). Or understand that solely 60 gamers ever have turned in each a and a recreation … and that Garland’s of .
These finer-point particulars that Garland shows from October by way of April? The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it launch on the jumper, the Nash-esque penchant for protecting his dribble alive beneath the basket to protect passing potentialities, the pristine footwork and shot-making contact, the , the change of tempo he , that — all that stuff? Nicely, they don’t have a tendency to stay within the collective consciousness in case your crew doesn’t make a deep run within the playoffs.
All of it provides as much as a maybe artificially depreciated worth. So: The assertion?
“Yeah, I feel underrated,” Garland instructed Yahoo Sports activities. “I don’t really get the credit that I deserve … but we’ll keep making strides in the right direction, keep growing, and that’s how you move on.”
Garland provided that evaluation shortly after a season-opening win over the Brooklyn Nets — one during which he , costing him the subsequent 4 video games, and setting a grim tone for his 2023-24 marketing campaign.
The Cavs, broadly, did hold making strides final season, ending fourth within the East regardless of a slew of rotation gamers lacking vital time, and successful their first playoff sequence in six years. Garland, nevertheless, noticed his ascent stall, with the hamstring points curbing his early-season manufacturing earlier than a with Kristaps Porziņģis fully wrecked him.
The that Garland suffered saved him on the shelf for six weeks, unable to work out lest an . Together with his jaw wired shut, Garland couldn’t ; the all-liquid weight loss plan value him 12 kilos, and the jaw fracture . That left the 6-foot-1 level guard considerably weakened when he did return from an absence that as not solely “the worst injury of my career,” however “one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through in my life” — a setback that, mixed with throughout the season, contributed to him feeling like he’d “sort of lost my joy for basketball.”
“I mean, last year, we know he went through something crazy that none of us have experienced, and you can see that his game took a dip,” Cavs center Jarrett Allen recently . “It’s hard for anybody to go through that.”
But with the cloud cover of that brutal season now cleared, all that’s left is a gleaming silver lining. With the Cavs off to one of the hottest starts in NBA history — a heading into Tuesday’s Emirates NBA Cup meeting with the Celtics at TD Garden, the building where his 2023-24 derailed in December and — Garland is fully healthy, playing the best basketball of his career … and right back to reminding observers and opponents alike that they overlook him at their own risk:
Garland enters Tuesday’s tilt with the C’s averaging 21.4 points and 7.0 assists in 30.2 minutes per game. After cracking 20 points just 19 times in 57 games last season, he’s already done it nine times in 15 games this season, leading Cleveland in scoring in six of those contests — including a 25-point, 12-assist performance in a Sunday win over the Hornets, in which Mitchell got the night off to rest, allowing his backcourt partner to stride confidently into the center-stage spotlight and cook:
He’s back to being one of the NBA’s premiere downhill attackers, averaging , and making even more out of those forays into the paint. Garland’s converting a of his shots within 4 feet of the basket, which he’s taking more frequently than he has . He’s also leading the league in , thanks in part to his gift for playing the cat-and-mouse game with dropping big men, consistently keeping them guessing as to whether he’s about to loft the floater that he’s or tossing an to the likes of Mobley and Allen.
Sink back to play Garland for the drive, though, and you’re in danger, because he’s shooting the absolute leather off the ball: , 45.5% from 3-point land, 93.2% from the free-throw line, all career highs. On one hand, that can’t possibly be sustainable. (That goes for the Cavs as a whole, who are shooting 41.9% from 3-point range as a team, which not only , but would be the — and the highest when not shooting from a .)
It might not be that far beyond the boundaries of possibility, though, considering a healthy Garland is one of the best shooters in the world … even if his name doesn’t necessarily leap to the front of your mind when you conjure that list.
To wit:
have made more 3-pointers than Garland since the start of the 2021-22 season (and that’s with him missing 25 games last season);
have shot a higher percentage from deep than Garland’s 39.4%;
He’s one of to launch more than 275 attempts from at least 28 feet out in that span;
He’s the in that group to knock down at least 40% of those extra long balls.
That Garland is that good a shooter has actually been something of a sticking point in Cleveland over the years, with coaches and teammates alike consistently calling on the young table-setter to make sure to feed himself, too.
“Yeah, I hear that a lot,” a laughing Garland told Yahoo Sports last year. “But I’ve been playing like that all my life. I’ve always been taught to play the right way, so I try to get my teammates involved, and when it’s my time to try to be aggressive and shoot the ball, I’ll just do that.”
Add new Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson to the ranks of those demanding Garland let it fly.
“He wants me to shoot as many 3s as I can,” Garland . “He wants me to get up to eight to 10 3s a game. He wants me to shoot all the open ones, shoot ’em with confidence. He told me, be free, play my game, play with the joy I always had.”
The attempt totals have been depressed a bit by the fact that Cleveland has blown so many opponents’ doors off that Garland’s only averaging a career-low 30.1 minutes per game. So far, so good, though: He’s firing a career-high 10.6 triples per 100 possessions, and knocking down a torrid 45.5% of them — a combination of shooting volume, accuracy and offensive usage that only Stephen Curry has managed over the course of a full season. (He’s . Of course he has.)
Some of the uptick in Garland’s long-range bombing stems from the ways in which Atkinson has sought to overhaul Cleveland’s offense. A Cavs team that finished last season is up to thus far, getting shots up a than on average; Garland has already made 10 3-pointers in transition in 15 games, compared to just 16 in 57 games last season.
It’s also to some degree a function of the decision to shift to Evan Mobley. Garland’s average is his lowest since , and he’s spending just 31% of his floor time on the ball, according to , a drop of nearly 10% from last season; Mobley, in turn, has already finished more possessions as the ball-handler in the pick-and-roll in 14 games this season () than he did in 50 games last season ().
That shift, aimed primarily at better , also has the fringe benefit of weaponizing the Cavs’ All-Star guards as lethal threats off the ball. Garland’s taking a career-high this season, and drilling a scorching 49% of them — a among 159 players to launch at least 30 long balls off the catch.
That combination of on- and off-ball production puts Garland in rare air among backcourt threats. He’s one of just four players in the NBA this season to rank in the 80th percentile or better in producing points as both a and a , according to Synergy Sports Technology. The other three: Anthony Edwards, Kyrie Irving … and, perfectly, Garland’s teammate Ty Jerome, who was limited to just two games last season by ankle surgery, and who has bounced back to this season, shooting 63% on 2-pointers and 54% on 3s with a 3.5-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Garland has paired his offensive bounce-back with a big step on the defensive end, too. At 6-foot-1 with a 6-foot-5 wingspan and a slender build, Garland’s always going to profile as the weakest link in the Cavaliers’ starting five. But after getting healthy and putting some muscle back on, he’s applying more ball pressure at the point of attack, and generating and at career-high rates. His ability to navigate ball screens and muck up passing lanes away from the play grade out as the best of his six pro seasons, according to ’s charting.
“His defensive effort is the biggest thing,” Mitchell after a win over the Knicks. “Like, 34 points? Yeah, he does that. Not really tripping on that. But being able to slide your feet, get to the spots, be there — those are the things we all feed off of. He’s been phenomenal.”
That phenomenal play has carried over into crunch time. The Cavs are a perfect 7-0 in games in which the score is within five points in the final five minutes, outscoring opponents by . They’ve scored just under , thanks in large part to Garland, who sits with 32 points on sizzling 12-for-15 shooting, with five assists against just one turnover.
“It doesn’t surprise me because of the talent and the smarts and what a great passer he is and good decision-maker,” Atkinson . “He’s got the shot. He’s got everything. He’s a complete, complete point guard.”
And because Garland’s once again playing his full-fledged floor game, giving them two of those “complete, complete point guards,” the Cavs are back to brutalizing opponents in just about every configuration. Cleveland’s starting five has outscored opponents , fifth-best among lineups to have logged . In 209 minutes with Mitchell ? Plus-15.4 points-per-100. In 225 Darius-sans-Donovan minutes? Plus-16.3 points-per-100.
Put it all together, and according to a slew of advanced metrics — , , , , Neil Paine’s estimated , The BBall Index’s , etc. — the 24-year-old guard has been one of the 15 to 25 most productive players in the NBA this season.
“He’s a real level guard,” Atkinson after a win over the Bucks. “And now, add the scoring to it, and you’ve got an All-Star guy.”
Before the injuries scuttled his 2023-24 run, Garland told Yahoo Sports that he had his sights set on a second All-Star appearance and a first All-NBA nod; maybe he was just a year early. Because if he and the Cavs keep this up, he won’t be overlooked or underrated anymore.
“He’s gonna keep playing like this,” Mitchell . “This is who he is.”
Author : News-NBA
Publish date : 2024-11-19 15:21:34
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