Winners and Losers: Cavs vs Celtics – Darius Garland’s mixed performance

The Cleveland Cavaliers dropped a frustrating one to the Boston Celtics. Let’s see who won and lost the night.

This has long been a thorn in the Cavs’ side. Rebounding the ball was once again a challenge tonight. The Celtics were clobbering Cleveland on the glass, holding a +10 rebounding advantage going into the fourth quarter.

It wasn’t until the Cavs finally started exerting themselves that this game became close again. The Cavs clawed back to cut the rebounding disadvantage to 46-43, and had a chance to win or tie the game at the buzzer.

The fact that they didn’t play this hard all night long is what makes it frustrating. I give Jaylon Tyson an honorary WINNER for his post game comments.

“I feel like teams want it more than us,” Jaylon Tyson said after the game. “The young guys and the role players, it shouldn’t be us having to bring the energy every time.”

We don’t need to spend much time on this. You’re all familiar with the issue at this point. But I’m glad that Tyson, a role player in his second season, had the guts to call out the rest of the team for their lack of effort. Someone had to say it.

As for the attention to detail, the Cavaliers were torched by Boston’s methodical yet predictable attack. They would get one foot into the paint, draw two defenders, and then spray it out to the perimeter for uncontested threes.

I understand that fixing point-of-attack defense is easier said than done. But the Defensive Player of the Year is capable of anchoring your efforts in the paint. The Cavs collapsed far too easily on Boston’s drives — and should have dared them to finish over Mobley more often than they did. Instead, it was a three-point barrage.

This is the vision for Mobley. He scored 27 points, grabbed 14 rebounds, and made all the right passes for 4 assists. Mobley was bringing the ball up the floor, dribbling into the teeth of Boston’s defense, then either scoring the ball himself or dishing it to open teammates on the perimeter.

Mobley opened the third quarter by scoring Cleveland’s first 8 points. He canned multiple three-pointers and drove to the basket to put Boston’s defense in a bind. As the quarter went on, Mobley started to establish himself on the glass for multiple second-chance points. This was a masterclass from Mobley offensively.

It’s been a while since we saw Mobley dribble with this much confidence. He looked composed and totally in control for long stretches tonight. This is exactly the type of baseline mobility we want Mobley to play with. If he can continue to navigate the floor this seamlessly, the rest of his game should naturally fall into place.

Unfortunately, Mobley wasn’t flanked with enough support tonight for this game to end in a win. But make no mistake, Mobley was a huge winner.

This was shaping up to be a very bad game from Garland. He was heavy on the turnovers and light on the scoring heading into the fourth quarter. It’s hard for the Cavs’ offense to feel threatening when Garland is playing this far below his standards.

Then the fourth quarter happened, and Garland scored 13 points on 5-7 shooting. He was getting to the rim, finishing with both hands, and launching a clutch three-pointer in the closing seconds to make Boston nervous. It wasn’t enough, but it was a run worth highlighting.

“He showed signs of being the old DG,” Kenny Atkinson said after the game. “Towards the end of the game, speed was there, he’s getting to the rim — obviously, at the beginning of the game, it wasn’t as smooth… but that was a real positive sign, I think he was part of the group that led the comeback.”

It’s important to remember this was only Garland’s seventh game of the season. That isn’t an excuse for his first three quarters, but it’s natural that DG will take some time to find his groove. Until then, the Cavs are relatively toothless.