Practice Notebook: Garland's status, bombing away from deep, and a scheduling quirk
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The Cleveland Cavaliers are set to take on the Boston Celtics for the second time in three games on Wednesday night at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. The first meeting between the two teams created an overtime thriller that resulted in a win for the Cavs.
The next meeting may result in the return of All-Star point guard Darius Garland.
Garland has missed Cleveland last five games after he suffered a left eye laceration in the team’s opening night loss in Toronto against the Raptors. In that game, Garland played 13 minutes before exiting in the second quarter and not returning.
Garland has been doing on-court work over the last week or so, and Cavs head coach J.B. Bickerstaff told the media following Tuesday’s practice that Garland was trending in the right direction.
“We’ll see tomorrow,” Bickerstaff said about Garland’s availability. “He went through everything. Again, it's how he's feeling tomorrow, what the swelling looks like, but he was good today.”
The Cavs officially have Garland listed as questionable on the official injury report.
Getting Garland back would obviously be a boost to the team, even if they’ve done a terrific job keeping things afloat without him. It’s fair to expect that the burden on Donovan Mitchell would immediately be lessened upon Garland’s return. To date, Mitchell has a usage rate of 31.9, which ranks eighth in the NBA.
Whether or not Garland does actually return against the Celtics will be seen on Wednesday, but at the very least, signs are showing that a return to the floor for him is imminent.
Bombs away
The Cavaliers fired off 50 3-point attempts on Sunday night in their win over the New York Knicks. That’s not a number that should be expected frequently from these Cavs, but it is one they appear to be comfortable with as a deviation from the norm.
So far this season, Cleveland is 13th in the NBA in 34.3 3-point attempts per game. It’s a number that’s up from last year when they attempted 32.8 per game. The number that is more important to be up from last season is the number of attempts they’re connecting on. In 2021-22, the Cavs made 35.5% of their 3-point attempts, which, while fairly average, can be taken as disappointing given the quality of looks that they were finding.
“I mean, I think we're creating open shots,” Bickerstaff said. “You know, we got the right guys taking those open shots and I hope that we took lessons from last year, and last year, you go back and look at the numbers, we created open shots at a high level. We didn't make them.”
In a very small sample size of just six games, the Cavs have knocked down a league-leading 42.7% of their 3-point attempts. That number may not be the most sustainable, but it’s hard to say by just how much. Nearly a quarter of Cleveland’s shot attempts are deemed open or wide open 3-pointers by NBA stats and the Cavs are shooting 40.3% on those looks. That’s a rate that the Cavaliers should be able to keep up with throughout the season, especially given the quality of some of the shooters the team is running out there.
Shooting more from distance was going to be part of the plan this year for the Cavs the moment that Mitchell was acquired. When Garland returns there might be another uptick in attempts from deep, but overall, this is a team that is built to knock down open shots from the outside, and with Mitchell, Garland, and LeVert, the Cavs are going to continue to have tremendous looks from the outside.
A quirky schedule
Wednesday marks the second time in three games that the Cavaliers will take on the Boston Celtics. It’s a bit of a quirk in the NBA schedule that is being used more this year.
Even though there was a game in between, this is an opportunity to treat this like a playoff series for the Cavaliers. Obviously, the outcome on Wednesday is not nearly as vital as it would be in say, the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals, but this does give the team and coaching staff a sort of mock scenario. The staff will have the chance to make adjustments based on what was seen last Friday while it is all fresh in the heads of the players.
“It does help in preparation, you know, to know exactly what you're facing,” Bickerstaff said. “I also think it's helpful for the postseason because it gives you that same kind of a feel with the day in between and now you figure out your adjustments, so, I think the experience is good for long term as well. But it does make preparation easier.”
This isn’t the only time the Cavs will be facing this type of scenario, in fact, there are seven more instances this season after Wednesday where the team will be facing the same team twice in a row or twice in a three-game stretch.
Seeing how Bickerstaff and the rest of his staff make adjustments to things that the Celtics did well on Friday, and how they make adjustments to what Boston did in an attempt to slow the Cavs down as well.
Tip off on Wednesday is set for 7:30 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPN.
