Darius Garland just needs to “shoot the ball”
The Cavs have only broken triple-digits twice in the last two playoffs. Both were a result of Garland confidentially shooting the ball.
Darius Garland’s 16 field goal attempts in Game 5 were the most he’s had in nearly a month. Still, it wasn’t enough.
“He could’ve shot more, to be honest with you,” Donovan Mitchell said. “That’s the mindset for him.”
Garland had that mindset for the first quarter and it completely changed the game. Seventeen of his 23 points came in the opening frame which kickstarted a Cleveland Cavaliers offense that had been stuck in the mud all series. He was confidentially hunting shots off the dribble and attacking closeouts hard when his defender overcommitted on the perimeter.
Garland’s skills work in concert with each other in a way that few others do. Each part of his game accents another perfectly allowing him to look like one of the most skilled players in the league when he has it going. His defender has to guard him 30 feet from the hoop when he’s taking threes without hesitation. When they do that, Garland can easily get by with his quick burst and knife into the paint. This opens up the easy lob to the big or pass out to the corner if the defense steps up. If they don’t, he can get into the paint for an easy floater or layup.
It’s similar to a skill tree in a video game. Each element that gets unlocked allows him to influence the game in another way until he can take over the offensive side of the floor completely. But that’s only possible when he’s aggressively looking for his own shot.
“His job is to keep guys involved,” Marcus Morris said. “I think it’s a give and take. You want to be super aggressive but you want everybody to touch the ball. Times like this, him being a good player, he realized he needed to get his first and then it’ll open up for everybody else. I think that really showed through down the stretch.”
We saw exactly how that happened in Cleveland’s second-to-last offensive possession. Instead of passing it off to Mitchell after he got the switch and mismatch with Franz Wagner, Garland decisively took it at Orlando’s best perimeter defender in Jalen Suggs after seeing how aggressively Suggs was trying to prevent the outside shot. This led to the blowby and dish to Evan Mobley.
“I know he needed that, but as a group we needed that,” Mitchell said. “He was phenomenal throughout the whole game.”
Garland was a bystander in his own reality in Games 3 and 4 when the Orlando Magic took control of the series. He often gets into the trap of trying to let the game come to him, but by the time he chooses to act it has already passed him by. That can’t happen in Game 6 if the Cavs have only hope of ending the series there.
“Same thing, shoot first mentality,” Garland said when asked about what he needs to do in Game 6. “We gotta hit first. Especially there.”
Good shooting nights and bad shooting nights are part of basketball. Game 5 was a good one which allowed Garland to unlock his entire package. However, this team can’t afford to only have impactful performances when his outside shot is falling. With the current state of Mitchell’s knee, they need it every game. And there’s only one way to make sure he can have that impact.
“Shoot, shoot, shoot. I don’t give a damn. Shoot the ball,” Mitchell said. “At the end of the day, go out swinging.”