Game Night Observations: Ty Jerome's Career Night – Again, Respecting The Game, And Jaylon Tyson's First Start

The dream of going 81-1 is still alive!

The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the New Orleans Pelicans, or more accurately, fringe NBA players wearing New Orleans uniforms, 128-100, on Wednesday night at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. 

It’s hard to be anything other than impressed with the start to the season that Ty Jerome has had for the Cavs. His counting stats for the season won’t blow anyone away – he averages 11.8 points, 3.6 assists, and 2.1 rebounds per game. Those numbers don’t measure the impact that he has had on the team’s success, though. 

The Cavs have been able to count on Jerome in a way that would have been impossible to predict before the season. Saying he was an afterthought wouldn’t be true, but it wouldn’t be accurate to say that many outside the organization were factoring anything he could do this season into how they viewed the Cavs. 

Externally, it felt like Jerome was a fringe rotation guy. If he could be reliable for 10 minutes a night, spelling one of Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell, that would be a success. 

Internally, higher expectations were revealed just before the beginning of training camp. 

“He had a really good offseason,” Cavs president of basketball operations Koby Altman said at his preseason press availability back in late September. “And then if I had to rank open gym in September, MVP of September. Now again, September is meaningless, but he's been balling and it's good to see him healthy again.”

Saying that a player was the MVP of September – which Altman did admit was meaningless – while guys like Mitchell, Garland, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen all still play on the team was bold of Altman. Even as optimistic as that comment was, the Cavs didn’t believe this sort of play was coming from Jerome as consistently as it has.