Watching the Market: Cleveland Cavaliers at Detroit Pistons

The Cleveland Cavaliers only won by 10 against the Detroit Pistons on Friday night, but it felt like much more. The Cavs let go of the rope in the fourth quarter to make the game look much more competitive than it actually was.

STOCK UP

Darius Garland’s three-point attempts remain up. He backed up going 7-14 from deep against the Chicago Bulls with eight makes on 12 attempts on Friday.

The Cavs needed an assertive version of Garland with Donovan Mitchell and Caris LeVert out of the lineup and they got it. He didn’t hesitate to aggressively pull whenever he saw an opening. This included a 6-7 stretch in the second quarter that allowed the Cavs to create their first real separation in the game.

Garland and Mitchell have struggled to fully mesh this season. That’s been no secret. However, it’s much easier to envision that duo reaching its potential when Garland is aggressively launching from distance like he’s been doing the past two games.

Sam Merril made the most of his opportunity to return to the rotation. This included knocking down a three in his first possession on the floor.

He didn’t have an outrageous shooting performance, but his off-ball movement continues to provide a spark this team desperately needs. We saw that in the 25 minutes he played. Now the question is whether Merrill will get minutes again when Mitchell and LeVert return to the lineup.

Defensive rebounding returned to form on Friday. Cleveland grabbed 78.9% of the Pistons' missed shots while allowing just nine offensive boards. Detroit isn’t a particularly strong offensive-rebounding group, but Cleveland once again looked like the team that’s fourth in the league in defensive-rebounding percentage (74.5%) instead of whatever that was in Chicago.

STOCK DOWN

Garland’s finishing inside the arc wasn’t pretty. He went 1-9 on shots that weren’t threes, including four misses in the paint. His one make was a nice midrange jumper to officially put the game out of reach in the final minutes.

This has been somewhat of a problem since returning from his injury. Garland is now finishing just 57.8% of his attempts at the rim which isn’t ideal for someone who likes to drive inside as much as he does.

Jarrett Allen is in a funk, as he backed up a poor showing against Chicago with just 9 points on 1-7 shooting against Detroit. Allen still made his presence felt in other areas including the glass, but it was weird to see him go back to the passive offensive player he was at the beginning of the season.

The Pistons’ 2021 draft strategy backfired on Friday. Evan Mobley continues to dominate the Pistons and Houston Rockets, the two teams that passed on him in the draft, every time he plays them. It helps that they’ve mostly been poor teams throughout his career, but it’s noticeable how much more engaged he is in those contests.

Mobley registered 22 points on 7-13 shooting with team highs in assists (7), rebounds (17), blocks (2), and plus/minus (+19). It was a completely dominant performance on both ends.

HOLDING

Isaac Okoro was awesome once again. He continues to be incredibly decisive on and off-ball as he contributed 12 points on 4-9 shooting which included going 2-5 from deep.

However, Okoro didn’t return to action in the fourth quarter after taking a hard fall. J.B. Bickerstaff confirmed post-game that he was held out in the fourth due to back tightness. We’ll see if that will keep him out of Sunday’s game against the New York Knicks.