TRENDING: SEARCH 0 ITEMS OHIO STATE CLEVELAND CINCINNATI GENERAL OVE STORE SUBSCRIBE Can a Darius Garland & Collin Sexton backcourt Subscrib work? e To Our Posted by Nick Grossman | Oct 31, 2020 | Cleveland, Newslett er Cleveland Cavaliers | 0 Receive Ohio Vs Everyone's best articles once a week. EMAIL Subscribe! OUR SPONSORS A question looming over the Cleveland Cavalier organization is whether or not a backcourt of Garland and Collin Sexton can work. Cavs fans may not like the answer. RECENT POSTS While the sample size of one season (not even a full one) Bengals is small, Garland and Sexton did share the court for 1255 head coach minutes last season, the fth-most minutes played for any Zac duo on the roster. During those minutes, some ugly issues Taylor is historical arose on both sides of the oor. ly bad Cincinnati Defense Bengals Forgetting stats and analytics for a second, both guards May=eld’ are only 6-foot-1 and neither weighs more than 200 s connectio pounds. For an NBA backcourt, that is undersized to say n with the least. Landry is evolving at the Last season, teams had a eld day on offense tearing up perfect time these two. Opposing teams were able to pick them apart Cleveland, in various ways. Whether it was simply attacking whoever Cleveland Browns was stuck on the much bigger two-guard, putting them in pick-and-rolls, or forcing them to make proper rotations, Potential opponents scored with relative ease against Garland and selection s with the Sexton. Bengals top pick Cleveland, Cleveland Browns According to NBA.com’s advanced stats, out of the 15 most-used two-player lineup combinations for the Cavs last season, Garland and Sexton had the worst defensive rating at 117.3. Using the same rating system, last season Cleveland nished dead last as a team. The fact that the Garland-Sexton duo has the worst rating out of the top 15 lineup combinations says even more then. While it is a positive that neither player tends to take The Big possessions off or play without energy, it’s concerning that Ten their defensive rating was that bad. An easy solution should be Hexible to would have been telling them to just play harder. It help Ohio demonstrates that they may be incapable of being on the State get in the Poor at the same time without signicantly hurting the playoffs team. Ohio State, Ohio State Football It should be noted that Sexton recently showed up to the Cavs’ in-market bubble having put on 10-15 pounds of Good, bad, and muscle. This added strength should help him guard those ugly of larger two-guards and other players when switching on the Columbu pick-and-rolls, but his height is still going to be a problem. s Blue Teams don’t usually expect their shooting guard to grab Jackets reverse many defensive boards, but Sexton averaging only 2.2 last retro season is problematic. jerseys Columbus Blue Jackets OUR Offense SPONSORS A defense for using this backcourt typically revolves around the argument that their offensive repower makes up for their defensive woes. Well, that statistically is not true. The duo’s offensive rating was only 106.5, leaving them with a net rating of -10.8. This lower offensive rating stems from Garland and Sexton merely not being compatible on that side of the oor. They are both naturally point guards, so having them play together leads to one having to play out of position. It also does not help that their playing styles are contrasting. Garland tends to slow the pace down and run a more organized offense. On the other hand, Sexton likes to push tempo and attack players individually. He is also too ball-dominant for a shooting guard. At times, Sexton does not allow Garland to get into the offense. Garland’s elite skill is supposed to be his shooting, and Sexton’s is his ability to beat people off the dribble. With this in mind, having Garland run the point and Sexton off the ball makes little sense, and the Cavs often went with that type of offense. Simply put, Sexton is not a good enough spot up shooter to be a starting shooting guard for a competitive team. Garland already struggles to get by defenses on his own. Having a defender there helping out because they don’t respect Sexton’s jumper does not make it any easier for Garland to score. Generally speaking, it’s a bad sign when your starting backcourt’s offensive rating is below the team’s average, especially when the team’s average was 26th in the league… That was the case for the Garland-Sexton duo last season. Solution Don’t worry Cavalier faithful, this is not just another Garland/Sexton slam piece. There is a solution here that highlights each player’s strengths. Start Garland at the point with Kevin Porter Jr. at shooting guard. Garland is more a traditional point guard than Sexton and does a better job of running the offense. Additionally, Garland is less ball-dominant, so this creates a better dynamic between him and Porter. Porter would pick up the one-on-one scoring slack for Garland, while matching up better than Sexton on defense with opposing two-guards. For the second unit then, the Cavs would bring Sexton off the bench with either Dylan Windler or whoever they pick in the upcoming draft (they have the fth overall pick). This would move Sexton back to his natural position of point guard and eliminate some of his issues on the defensive end. Unless the pick is LaMelo Ball or Anthony Edwards, the second unit’s shooting guard would not take up many shots on offense. Sexton would be able to get up more shots and play his iso-style of basketball better. He should be able to dominate the opposing team’s backup point guard with his strength, speed, and agility. In addition to bringing scoring to the bench, it would also bring more energy as Sexton prides himself on being an effort guy. The only real concern with this solution is convincing Sexton to come off the bench. If he pushes back on the move, the team should bring up the Los Angeles Clippers’ Lou Williams, who has made an impressive career out of being one of the best sixth-men in league history. It helps that there are additionally some similarities that can be drawn between how Williams and Sexton play. SHARE: PREVIOUS NEXT Justin Fields has chance to Five clips that taught us become the greatest QB in Ohio something from Buckeyes win State history against Penn State ABOUT THE AUTHOR Nick Grossman I graduated from the University of Virginia in 2020 and am attending Georgetown University to pursue my Master’s in Sports Industry Management. Born and raised in Industry Management. Born and raised in Richmond, VA, I grew up a die-hard Cleveland fan because my dad is from there. My rst Cleveland jersey was Tim Couch’s, and my jersey selection luck only got worse from there (B. Quinn, B. Edwards, J. Gordon, J. Manziel). When I was 16, ESPN wrote an article about me getting henna tattoos of LeBron and Kevin Love. If you don’t believe me, just google “Nick Grossman LeBron James.” RELATED POSTS David Five Analyzi Clevel Njoku clips ng and still from Cavs Brown ts in the potenti s must the Brown al draft maxim Clevel s win choice: ize and over Onyek Odell Brown the a Beckh s Cowbo Okong am offens ys that wu September 16, 2020 e taught November 10, 2020 August 5, 2020 us somet hing October 5, 2020 Leave a reply Your email address will not be published. COMMENT NAME EMAIL WEBSITE Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. POST COMMENT Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress Our Contributors Youtube Page OVE Store .