Game Night Observations: Darius Garland Breaking Out, Ty Jerome's Big Night and the Playoff Picture

Staying up late for Cavs basketball won't be required again until next season!

Photo by Zack Spear on Unsplash

The Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the Portland Trail Blazers 122-111 on Tuesday night to close out their five-game West Coast road trip.

Darius Garland has been showing signs of looking like himself again recently. Against Portland on Tuesday night, he fully emerged from his slump with a 27-point performance on a night where Donovan Mitchell was inactive with left groin injury management.

When Garland’s game started to slip following a hip injury sustained against the New York Knicks shortly after the All-Star break, one of the things that was noticeably off was his ability to knock down floaters. For Garland, that shot is a barometer of sorts for his offensive game. When he’s able to get into a comfortable spot in the paint and convert on those looks, he’s awfully difficult to stop. When he struggles to connect on those looks, his total game isn’t there.

That’s what Garland’s shot chart against Portland looked like on Tuesday. It wasn’t the peak version of him, because it didn’t include very many 3-pointers, but it was a really strong performance that can be viewed as a signal of good things to come.