{"id":117147,"date":"2025-01-10T09:31:15","date_gmt":"2025-01-10T14:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=117147"},"modified":"2025-01-10T09:31:15","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T14:31:15","slug":"atkinson-bullish-on-darius-garland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/10\/atkinson-bullish-on-darius-garland\/","title":{"rendered":"Cavs Coach Bullish on Star After 40-Point Outburst Thursday"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cavs moved to an NBA best 33-4 following their 132-126<\/a> win over the Toronto Raptors on Thursday. Cleveland is now on a 12-game win streak and just four wins away from becoming the fifth team<\/a> in league history to be 37-4 or better halfway through a season. After the game, head coach Kenny Atkinson had strong words<\/a> for his lead guard Darius Garland<\/a> who notched a season-high 40 points.<\/p>\n

Cavs Coach Bullish on Star After 40-Point Outburst Against Raptors<\/h2>\n

The Cavs entered action on Thursday following their intense victory<\/a> over the Western Conference leaders, the Oklahoma City Thunder, on Wednesday. Due to the back-to-back, Donovan Mitchell<\/a> was out for Thursday’s game for rest which put Garland in the spotlight. He responded accordingly.<\/p>\n

“He carried us,” Atkinson said in a postgame press conference. “This is the first game all year that I felt like one guy carried us. He carried us, we weren’t good but he singlehandedly took over this game. If he’s not an All-Star then I don’t know what an All-Star looks like.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Garland’s season-high 40 points was just the second 40-point game by a Cavalier this season. Evan Mobley<\/a> had 41 against the Charlotte Hornets in a blowout<\/a> win at the beginning of December. However, the Cavs needed all 40 of Garland’s against the Raptors. Toronto led for large portions of the game with their largest lead being 12.<\/p>\n

Garland Is Clutch<\/h3>\n

The Cavs are the league’s best clutch team with a win percentage of 87.5 at 14-2. A majority of those wins have come from the great play of Garland down the stretch. He leads the league<\/a> with an offensive rating of 154.5 in 16 clutch games (min 10 GP). Garland has the best FG% in clutch games of players in the league, shooting a staggering 65.5% from the field (min 10 GP, one FGA per clutch game).<\/p>\n

In total in the clutch, Garland has notched 53 points and 10 assists in just under 47 minutes of action in clutch games. His total points rank eighth<\/a> in the league.<\/p>\n

“Incredible in the clutch,” Atkinson said about Garland. “I don’t know his clutch numbers but they have to be elite, they have to be tops in the league. He makes big plays for us at the end of the game.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cavs All-Stars?<\/h3>\n

Garland has petitioned himself to be an All-Star ahead of the spectacle in San Francisco in February.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/HoodiGarland\/status\/1877545411633709307<\/p>\n

Garland is now shooting 50\/40\/90. He is playing the most efficient basketball of his career, shooting over 55% on 2-pointers and 43% on 3-pointers. Paired with the Cavs’ historic start to the season and his clutch play, Garland surely should be an All-Star. Cleveland should have at least three guys representing them in The Bay.<\/p>\n

Garland moved up to ninth<\/a> among Eastern Conference guards in the second return of All-Star ballots, having previously been left off the top 10<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h3>\n

Garland rising to the occasion not only when Mitchell is out of the lineup but in the clutch, in general, has been a huge part of his resurgence this season. The way he is playing right now makes it ever clear that he will return to the All-Star game after a two-year hiatus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cavs moved to an NBA best 33-4 following their 132-126 win over the Toronto Raptors on Thursday. Cleveland is now on a 12-game win streak and just four wins away from becoming the fifth team in league history to be 37-4 or better halfway through a season. After the game, head coach Kenny Atkinson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5174,"featured_media":117175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1608,62,14],"tags":[1937,900,3966,236,2815],"class_list":["post-117147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cavaliers","category-basketball","category-nba","category-raptors","tag-darius-garland","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-evan-mobley","tag-kenny-atkinson","tag-nba-all-star-game"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117147"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117176,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117147\/revisions\/117176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}