{"id":117270,"date":"2025-01-10T16:00:23","date_gmt":"2025-01-10T21:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=117270"},"modified":"2025-01-10T16:01:44","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T21:01:44","slug":"cavaliers-darius-garland-all-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/10\/cavaliers-darius-garland-all-star\/","title":{"rendered":"Cavaliers Point Guard Sets Eyes on 2nd All-Star Nod"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Cavaliers took the NBA’s\u00a0<\/span>biggest game of the season<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in a win over the Oklahoma City Thunder two nights ago on Wednesday. It was a thriller and everything fans hoped it would be. The Cavs are currently running the league\u2014a role many believed the\u00a0<\/span>Boston Celtics<\/span><\/a>\u00a0would have, yet Cleveland is unquestionably the best team across both conferences. The Cavaliers also have a bevy of deserved All-Stars\u2014<\/span>Darius Garland<\/span><\/a>\u00a0being one of them. Will he earn his second career vote? He believes he should.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cavaliers Point Guard Sets Eyes on 2nd All-Star Nod<\/h3>\n

‘I Should be an All-Star’, says Cavaliers PG Darius Garland<\/h3>\n

Donovan Mitchell<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Evan Mobley<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Jarrett Allen<\/span><\/a>, and Garland are All-Star worthy. Mitchell and Garland are one of, if not the, best backcourt across the NBA. As for Mobley and Allen, they’re one of the top frontcourts. Their team and individual play, not to mention the Cavs’ 33-4 record, all contribute to why each player\u00a0<\/span>should and likely will receive All-Star votes<\/span><\/a>. Whether they all get in is another matter. However, while Mitchell is likely a lock, the Cavaliers other point guard, Garland, wants his slice of the pie, too. Following the Cav’s win over the Thunder, he talked about his desire for an All-Star nod but stated that he also believes his teammates deserve the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying to be humble as possible,\u201d Garland said via Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor<\/a>. \u201cBut \u2026 yeah, I should be an All-Star. Yes. There should be four of us on this team that are All-Stars.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Garland followed his comments up with a 40-point performance against the Toronto Raptors on Thursday. For the season, Garland averages 21 points per game on 50% shooting from the floor and 43.3% from three. He’s also adding 6.7 assists per night and 1.1 steals. Garland’s PPG is relatively close to Mitchell’s (22.9), which shows how balanced the Cavs backcourt is. It also shows how well the two players are complimenting each other offensively. As for Garland, who last made the All-Star game in the 2021-22 season, he is playing like an All-Star, at least in a reserve role.<\/p>\n

Predicting the Future<\/h3>\n

After watching the Cavaliers and Thunder do battle earlier this week, if you’re not hoping for the same NBA Finals matchup, something’s off. Even if you root for another team, a part of you should want to see these two teams go at it in a seven-game series. What’s <\/span>amazing<\/span> is that even without\u00a0<\/span>Chet Holmgren<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in the lineup, the Thunder were still in it all the way. Imagine if he were playing\u2014what a paint ruckus that would be. Holmgren,\u00a0<\/span>Isaiah Hartenstein<\/span><\/a>, Mobley, and Allen\u2014talk about a battle of the big men.<\/span><\/p>\n

What might be holding many back from putting the Cavs right into the finals is their recent playoff history since Mitchell joined the franchise three seasons ago. While Cleveland has been a competitive playoff contender each year, they have not made it past the semi-finals. The way they’re rolling this season, though, carries the makings of a different story. Getting past Boston will be the biggest test, supposing the two organizations make it to the Eastern Conference Finals. Regardless, the Cavaliers are burning hot, and Garland, as humble as he wants to be, should be in talks for an All-Star. He’s certainly playing like one, and the Cavaliers are playing like an All-Star squad all around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Cavaliers took the NBA’s\u00a0biggest game of the season\u00a0in a win over the Oklahoma City Thunder two nights ago on Wednesday. It was a thriller and everything fans hoped it would be. The Cavs are currently running the league\u2014a role many believed the\u00a0Boston Celtics\u00a0would have, yet Cleveland is unquestionably the best team across both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":117273,"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":[1608,9,62],"tags":[4292,1937,900,3966,993,1043],"class_list":["post-117270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-cavaliers","category-nba","tag-chet-holmgren","tag-darius-garland","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-evan-mobley","tag-isaiah-hartenstein","tag-jarrett-allen"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117270","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\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117270"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117278,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117270\/revisions\/117278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}