Cleveland Cavaliers: 2019-20 NBA season preview
By Phil Watson
Storyline 1: Can Cavs win with 2 small guards?
The plan going forward for the Cleveland Cavaliers is to team up two point guards as a dynamic duo in the backcourt, pairing second-year pro Collin Sexton with rookie Darius Garland.
The Cavaliers finished dead last in the NBA in 2018-19 with a defensive rating of 116.8 points allowed per 100 possessions and pairing two 6-foot-2 guys on the perimeter doesn’t seem to be an optimal way to better that mark.
Make no mistake — a Sexton-Garland backcourt tandem could have problems with bigger shooting guards and point guards.
But there is also a blueprint for success that Cleveland can hang its hat on. The Portland Trail Blazers have run Damian Lillard (6-foot-3) and CJ McCollum (similarly 6-foot-3) as a tandem for the last four seasons, going 187-141 over that span in the regular season, including last year’s 53-29 campaign that ended with a trip to the Western Conference Finals.
Portland was a middle-of-the-pack defensive team, finishing 16th with a defensive rating of 109.5, so it’s not as if they were the Bill Russell-era Boston Celtics out there, but they were adequate enough.
The question will be where the rest of the defensive coverage will come from. Cedi Osman is average at best, Kevin Love has never been renowned for his defense and Tristan Thompson is just an adequate defender at the center spot.
So if the Garland-Sexton duo is to work, they’ll have to start by outscoring teams and hoping to get enough stops. Not ideal, but in the small-ball era of the NBA, it could come together.