Transcription
On today's show, the Cavs beat the Washington Wizards on Sunday evening, but the real victory for Cleveland, well, that came in Boston. We'll explain on this edition of Locked on Cavs.
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>> Hi again, everybody. My name is Danny Cunningham and I cover the Cleveland Cavaliers over at my Substack the Inside Shot and you're listening to another edition of Locked on Cavs where today's show is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5 and get $250 in bonus bets if your first bet wins. Head to fanduel.com to get started.
Today on today's show, we'll be talking a little bit about game 82. We will be doing some reflection on the full season for the Cleveland Cavaliers, but we begin not with the Cavs beating the Washington Wizards, but rather with the Boston Celtics beating the Orlando Magic. Why am I beginning with this game in which Luca Garza hit a three-pointer with under a minute remaining that gave the Celtics the lead and ultimately the win as they took down the Orlando Magic. No Jason Tatum, no Jaylen Brown, no Derek White. A lot of the key players for Boston didn't play. Everybody of consequence played for Orlando. Why am I starting with that? Well, because that result paired with the Atlanta Hawks who did not play any of their key players in a loss to the Miami Heat and the Toronto Raptors who did play all their key players and beat the Brooklyn Nets who are very bad and don't have many key players. That means that the Cleveland Cavaliers now will face the Toronto Raptors in the first round of the playoffs. And I think this is a huge win for the Cavs.
This is not an instance of, you know, Atlanta is that much better than Toronto. I do think the Hawks are a better team. And I don't think that ultimately when you're in a position that the Cavs are in where you expect to be a team that gets to the conference finals, that gets to the NBA finals, that's capable of winning a championship this year, when you're that kind of team, you shouldn't care who your first round opponent is. You should expect to beat set opponent no matter who it is, no matter where you play. And I do think the Cavs would have beaten the Atlanta Hawks in the series and I think they will certainly beat the Toronto Raptors in the series. However, when you look at the way that the two teams match up, I think that the Atlanta Hawks could have given the Cavs some problems. And I'm not going to sit here and say that the Raptors aren't a good team because they're a good team. And there are cases to be made, that they're a better team than the Atlanta Hawks. But what they also are, I think, is a team that doesn't match up as well against the Cavs as the Atlanta Hawks does. And that's why I think that this is a big win for the the Cavs. because now they went from going into a series against an Atlanta team that's good, not great, that the Cavs should have beaten and I think again would have beaten, but you look at some of the things that the Cavs don't do all that well, those are kind of the things that the Hawks do very well, right? When you think about Cleveland's Achilles heel, particularly on the defensive end of the floor, it's they don't do a very good job defending the three-point line. they don't do a very good job um not even, you know, defending it in terms of makes, but they give up too many attempts. Well, the Hawks do that very well. They're top 10 in both make percentage and three-point attempts per game. If you're the Cavs and you could avoid that, that's a really good thing. And that's exactly what they did.
And yes, I know the Toronto Raptors played and beat the Cavaliers three times this season. You might look at that and think that's a bad omen. That could not matter any less. I think if you went through all 29 other teams and picked out the head-to-head matchups between the Cavs and other teams, all of them, I don't think that there is a less telling or less consequential head-to-head matchup than between the Cavs and the Toronto Raptors from a Cavs perspective. Because you look at those three games, first one played on Halloween all the way back on October 31st. It is April 13th as I record this right now. All the way back on October 31st. The Cavs starting five that night in Cleveland. It was an NBA Cup game, I believe. Evan Mobley, he matters. DeAndre Hunter, not on the Cavs anymore. Dean Wade matters. Jaylen Tyson matters. Lonzo Ball started that game, not in the NBA anymore. Luke Travers also not in the NBA anymore. Played 15 minutes in that game for the Cavaliers. The Raptors win that game in Cleveland against a very short-handed Cavs team. Obviously, no Donovan Mitchell, no Jared Allen in that game.
November 13th, that starting five, Donovan Mitchell, Sam Merrill, DeAndre Hunter, Evan Mobley, and Jared Allen. Okay, are we working with something here? No, we're not. That was the fifth game in seven nights for the Cavaliers. Remember that week where Darius Garland reinjured his toe for the first time in Miami and they played Miami back-to-back games and then they they flew home from Miami and played Toronto the very next night. That was this game. So, it's not only that they didn't have Darius Garland, they also didn't have Jaylen Tyson who suffered a concussion I believe in the first Miami Heat game, maybe the second one, but he did he was not available in this game. So, they were missing several key guys. the fifth game in seven nights. And if you go look, the Cavs did three instances of five games in seven nights. They lost all of them. It was the Raptors. They lost to the Golden State Warriors. And I'm struggling to remember the other one that they lost, but they lost all three games that were their fifth game in seven nights. And they didn't look good in any of them because teams very rarely look good in that spot. And then the third and final match up between these two teams came all the way back on November 24th, which is for our Canadian friends that are probably listening in on this show now because they want to find out what's going on with the Cavs. That was all the way before American Thanksgiving. Maybe not before Canadian Thanksgiving, but before American Thanksgiving. Starting five in that game in Toronto, Donovan Mitchell, Lonzo Ball, Jaylen Tyson, Evan Mobley, and Larry Nance Jr. started for the Cavs. Do you guys remember Chris Livingston? He was on two-way for the Cavs. He was not in training camp with the team. He was with the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks cut him. The Cavs signed him a little bit into the season. Well, Chris Livingston played 14 minutes in that game. Anybody remember that? No. Lonzo Ball, who like I said started played a season high 34 minutes in that game. He went three of 15 from the floor. So all of this obviously happened prior to the Cavs being who the Cavs are right now. James Harden was a member of the Clippers for all of the games the Cavs played against Toronto. Kian Ellison and Dennis Shruder were members of the Sacramento Kings for all of the games that happened between the Cavs and the Toronto Raptors this year.
Now the Raptors are a team that grows and evolves too, but I don't know that they're necessarily a team that got better as the year went on and they are a team that is dealing with some injuries. Emanuel Clickley certainly is a question mark heading into this series. I did see that he's going to be getting an MRI and of course there's a week before this series starts. It'll begin Saturday afternoon at 1:00 inside Rocket Arena. So like health can certainly change, but I don't think anything that happened between these two teams matters even a little bit this year. Um I'll go back through I'll go back and watch these games. I just cannot imagine there's going to be very much to take away because even if the Raptors might not be all that different and I'm not entirely sure how true that is, how true it's not, uh we will have Shawn Woodley from Locked on Raptors on later this week at some point to discuss this, but the Cavs I know are vastly different from who they were at this point. So, I do think that the Cavs match up well against Toronto. It doesn't matter that they went 0 and3. And the biggest reason why I think the Cavs match up so well against the Raptors. Why I think if you're a Cavs fan, you should be very excited that they don't have to play the Atlanta Hawks because the Hawks matched up better with the Cavs. Again, it's not a thing that the Cavs would not have beaten the Hawks. I think they would have. And I think if you are a team with championship expectations, shouldn't matter who your first round opponent is. That should be a series that I don't want to say you should be able to take lightly, but that shouldn't give you a lot of trouble. Um, but the Cavs have some Achilles heels, right? The three-point defense certainly one of them. The Hawks are top 10 in both three-point shooting percentage and the number of threes they take. The Toronto Raptors are 21st in three-point shooting percentage. They're not a very good shooting team from beyond the ark. They're also 26th in three-point attempts per game. They're not a team that gets them up. And if you are a Cavs fan, I think that is music to your ears because for where the Cavs struggle defensively, the Raptors are not a team that I think is very equipped to take advantage of Cleveland's defensive shortcomings at this time. And then you also think, okay, well may what about the rebounding side of things? The Raptors are bottom third in offensive rebounds per game, too. So, like the the areas where you think that the Cavs can get hurt, and I'm not here to disagree with that. The Cavs are far from a perfect team, particularly on the defensive end of the floor. Offensively, I think they should be able to put points up on anybody. They're so they have so much talent on that end. Um, but if where if you look at where they could get hurt defensively, the Raptors do not strike me as a team that is equipped to take advantage of them.
Now, the one area where the Cavs will have to be better than they have been, is defending in transition. The Raptors are not high up in pace, they're 21st in pace, which I do think kind of leads to maybe not getting some great shot quality at times. They take a lot of mid-range looks. Brandon Ingram certainly a guy that can make them. Um, Scotty Barnes, I don't think is necessarily had as great of a season as the start of his season was on the offensive end of the floor, but they are first and fast break points per game. like that is the one area where the Cavs need to be better defensively and that needs to be a humongous focus for them. Now, the good news is that tends to be something that doesn't always translate to the postseason, right? Like we think about the playoffs is the time of the year when basketball slows down a little bit. So maybe that will have a positive impact for the Cavs because the Cavs are a team right now that are equipped to play at a slower pace. And I do think that one of the things that could have given the Cavs problems with Atlanta is the Hawks want to play a little bit faster. The Raptors are perfectly fine playing a slow, methodical basketball game. And I think that really does fit the style that the Cavs want to play because in pace they have fallen off tremendously since they acquired James Harden. And pace is not a better or worse thing. It's more of a stylistic thing. Like you can be slow in pace and be awesome. The Celtics, I believe, have the slowest pace in basketball. They're one of the best teams in the league. It doesn't matter if you're good or not. And typically bad teams are high up in pace because they're not good in half court so they want to get out and run. The Raptors are slow in pace. And I think that is something that if Toronto is not going to try and stylistically change the game, then I do think that if you're the Cavs, you feel really good.
So this was all made possible because the Boston Celtics beat the Orlando Magic. Had the Magic won that game, the Atlanta Hawks would be coming to Cleveland for the first round. They would be. That's how the tiebreaker scenario would have worked. If the Magic would have won that game, they would have finished with the same record as both Atlanta and Toronto, but and that would have forced the three-way tie situation, which goes to a division winner, which is of course the Atlanta Hawks, champions of the Southeast Division. But because it was not a three-team tie, goes to headto-head, and the Raptors won their season series against the Atlanta Hawks. Oddly enough, all of those games, I believe, were played prior to Trey Young being traded away from Atlanta, too. So, I don't know that there's a ton to read into there. Not that that matters even a little bit, but because the Boston Celtics, without Jason Tatum, without Jaylen Brown, without Derek White, without Payton Pritchard, Neimish Kada, all of their best players, because of the heroics of Baylor Shyman and Luca Garza, the Cavs are taking on the Toronto Raptors. And no series for this team is going to be a walk in the park. No series for this team is some is a an assumed victory. They're the four seed for a reason and the Raptors are a good team, but from a matchup perspective, this is a very, very good thing for the Cavs compared to what it would have been. The Cavs should win this series. It should not be a very long series. And if you want to go deep into the postseason, you are much better off having a short series in the first round. If the Cavs can handle this in five games, I think their chances of defeating the Detroit Pistons in the second round, assuming Detroit gets through, um, which, you know, no series is a safe assumption with injuries, but assuming that Detroit gets through the first round, if the Cavs can finish off the Raptors in five games, I think their chances of beating the Pistons are much better than if this series goes six or seven. And I think the chances of this series going five are much higher than a series between the Cavs and the Hawks going five games. I think that probably would have been a six-game series. My gut right now, just right off the rip, early prediction, without diving too much into this, says Cavs in five. I think it's a really good matchup for them. I'm not sure how the Raptors are going to be able to slow down the Cavs offensively. I think that the Cavs have advantages in a lot of different areas, and I just don't think that the Raptors are a team that is built to take advantage of Cleveland's weaknesses.
Now, the Cavs have played 82 games in what truthfully has kind of been the longest preseason of all time. I want to reflect a little bit and give some credit because they won 52 of them despite not necessarily being dealt the best hand. We'll talk about that next right here on Locked on Cavs. But first, today's show is brought to you by Game Time. There's nothing like being in an NBA arena. The crowd, the energy, the moment. Getting tickets, though. Well, that part hasn't always been so simple. then you're going to want to be in the building because the next time the Cleveland Cavaliers play basketball, it's playoffs. It means more, so much more. Certainly much more than it meant on Sunday. And that's why Game Time is the go-to after scoring tickets fast without the hassle. It'll put the advantage back where it belongs with you, the fan. You pull up the Game Time app, pick an upcoming NBA game, like maybe game one on Saturday. We don't know when game two is yet, but maybe game two, whenever game two is, and you can have tickets locked in within minutes. Plus, you also see the all-in price up front. You're not going to be surprised by taxes and fees at the very last minute. The price you see, the price you pay. No surprise fees at checkout. Plus, you'll also be able to see the view from your seat before you buy to help make the decision even easier. So, take the guesswork out of buying NBA tickets with Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code locked on for $20 off your first purchase. That's code locked on, lo, for $20 off that first purchase. Download the Game Time app today, and remember, it's gametime.co, not.com.
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So the Cavs do deserve credit for getting through the season the way that they did. This was nobody's favorite season. I mean, when you compare this season to what they did last year, the way they looked last year, winning 64 games, obviously having the number two offense in NBA history, last regular season was a breeze. It was probably just like from a fun standpoint, the most fun regular season has been for the Cavs since 2008, 2009. That was the year they won 66 games. It was LeBron's second to last season in Cleveland before going to Miami. That season was a lot of fun. The next season was filled with stress. And then I think last season was probably the most fun since then. And this season has not been like that. This season had a lot of adversity for the Cavs. It had a lot of stress. It obviously had significant roster turnover at the trade deadline. sending out Darius Garland and DeAndre Hunter and Lonzo Ball and getting back James Harden, Kian Ellis, Dennis Shruder. Like this has been a very up and down season for the Cavs and that's why I think they deserve a lot of credit for getting through it the way that they have because I think it would have been really easy for this thing to just kind of go off the rails at a couple of different points. Kenny Atinson has brought this up a few times recently and he was asked about it prior to the game on Sunday about the team being 17 and 16. So, they woke up on December 29th. They were in San Antonio, Texas. They were 17 and 16. And the San Antonio Spurs are an awesome team. They have the second best record in the NBA. They are a team that is very, very capable of winning the NBA finals this year. So, they go into San Antonio. And, you know, I don't know that we knew the Spurs were quite that good at that point, but we knew the Spurs were very good. A loss in San Antonio would have meant that the Cavs were 500 through 34 games, which this team being 500 at any point after like six or seven games. Pretty big failure, right? And at that point, the vibes weren't good. Didn't feel like we were watching a team that was enjoying playing basketball. Felt like we were watching a team that knew that there was a lot of pressure on this season and that the only thing that mattered was the postseason. But they also looked like a team that you couldn't guarantee the postseason. Now, they were dealing with a lot of injuries, but that was a trying time for them. What do they do? They go into San Antonio and they win that night. And that win probably turned their season around. They came home from that three-game road trip. That was a loss in New York on Christmas, a loss in Houston, I believe, on December 27th, and then this win in San Antonio on December 29th. They come home, they beat the Phoenix Suns in what was a very nice win because the Suns at that time were playing really, really good basketball. And from there on out, they were one of the best teams in basketball. And I think the Cavs deserve a lot of credit for it because I know it's not always been pretty. And this has not been a season that has rivaled last year in terms of fun or how aesthetically pleasing the brand basketball the Cavs played was. And it certainly did not rival last year in terms of health. This is a group that, and I realize game 82 was weird, and the only significant players for the Cavs that played in this game were Jaylen Tyson and Max Streus against the Wizards on Sunday, but this was the 41st different starting lineup for the Cavs, which is easily, I believe, nine more than the Cavs have ever had in a single season. I believe the previous high was 32 different starting lineups that the Cavs had in a single season. They had 41 this year. That means on average every starting lineup they played got two games together. Their most common starting lineups, they had two of them that started a total of six consecutive games together. Or excuse me, not six consecutives, six games overall together. And one of those had Darius Garland and DeAndre Hunter in. So this is a team that has not been whole at all this season. They played exactly zero of their 82 games with their entire rotation available. And that will be part of the challenge of the playoffs is Kenny Atinson to some extent is going to be trying to figure this out on the fly because it's one thing to go into the play in the playoffs knowing what your top nine is or your top 10, knowing all your rotations, knowing where everybody fits. The Cavs don't have that luxury. They're going to have to figure it out on the fly. And that's going to be a tough thing for them to do. But I also think when you look at this, when you take like a 30,000 foot view of this season, was it a lot of fun? No. Is this a season that everyone's going to look back at and say, you know what, this was really, really awesome from October until April. No, no one's going to because it it was not. But I think the Cavs deserve a lot of credit for getting through it, for finding a way to win 52 games, for I I don't want to say that they deserve a parade to be thrown here because they don't. Like ultimately this group was always going to be judged on what happened in the playoffs and that's still the case. No one's judging them on what happened in the regular season. Was this regular season a success? Probably not. But the Cavs pre prevented it from being a failure. And that might be just as important, if not more important, than having it be a smashing success the way that last regular season was. So I think Kenny Atinson does deserve credit for that. I'm not saying he should be on anyone's coach of the year ballot. he shouldn't be. I'm not saying that he deserves some lifetime contract extension or that he's the best coach in the league. Those things aren't true. Not saying that he shouldn't even be under pressure in the postseason because he should be and he is under a lot of pressure to go deep in the playoffs this year because it does feel like for this group it's now or never that they get to at least the conference finals if not the NBA finals places that they've never been before. So I do think that while that stuff still does exist, it doesn't change. I think that we should look at this regular season say it wasn't fun. It wasn't great. It wasn't what we all anticipated it would be. But the Cavs deserve credit for not letting it be worse than it was. They deserve credit for getting to the postseason in one piece. Getting to the postseason and giving themselves as good of a chance to get to the conference finals, if not better than they had last year. Now, I know that nobody at this time last year was thinking about the Indiana Pacers as a team that really could scare the Cavs. We know how that turned out, but that Pacers team did go to the conference finals the year before. The Cavs right now, their path to the conference finals is a Toronto Raptor team that does not have a ton of playoff experience. And truthfully, as I talked about in the first segment, I think is not a good matchup for Cleveland or is a very good matchup for Cleveland. They do not match up well with Cleveland. And then a Detroit Pistons team that has not won a playoff series yet, most likely because I mean, maybe they could lose, but I I don't see that. You couldn't draw this up any better. The Cavs got to this point. They needed to take advantage of this. And I will talk at points this week about how much pressure they are under to take advantage under the postseason path that they have been gifted. But I do think that it's worth just talking about for a minute how much credit they do deserve because they they went through adversity. They went through stress. 41 different starting lineups and they closed out the year 35 and 14 after that December 29th date. The only two teams in basketball that have fewer losses than the Cavs since December 29th are the Thunder and the Spurs. That's really good company to be in. Now, they have the same number of losses as Detroit and as Boston. Those teams have a couple more wins in the Cavs because they played more games, but the only two teams with fewer losses, the Spurs and the Thunder. That's a really good place to be. I think Kenny Atkinson deserves credit. Truthfully, I think Donovan Mitchell deserves credit, too, because you don't get through what the Cavs went through this year without good leadership in the locker room. And I think that Donovan does deserve credit for that. I know that again, you need to do it in the playoffs. And ultimately, that's going to be the only thing that matters. And this is probably the last time I'll talk about the Cavs deserving credit for the regular season in the way that I think that they do. But it's at least worth giving them that credit. Not saying we need to throw parade. I'm not saying that this is that big of a deal, but it's at least worth mentioning.
Now, game 82 also worth mentioning because the Cavs did beat the Wizards and some young guys had some good days. We'll talk about it next right here on Locked on Cavs. But first, today's show is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA playoffs are finally here. Every possession matters, every matchup is magnified, and every game can swing a series. And right now, FanDuel giving new customers a great way to get in on the action. You can bet just $5 and get 250 in bonus bets if your first bet wins. FanDuel app makes it easy to follow the action with player stats, trends, matchups, all of it right in one place. Plus, during the playoffs, that extra insight really does matter when you're looking at stars, role players, and key moment. It just makes the entire playoff experience more engaging from start to finish. We do have some early lines for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the postseason. They are on FanDuel as I record this at 12:30 in the morning on Monday, April 13th. They are minus480 favorites to defeat the Toronto Raptors in the first round and advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals where they would again presumably take on the Detroit Pistons. They have the second bet. They are the second heaviest favorite in the first round in the Eastern Conference behind only the Boston Celtics. As for game one, we've got a line there as well. The Cleveland Cavaliers, like I said earlier, will open up against the Raptors this Saturday at 1:00 Eastern time. inside Rock Arena. The Cavaliers on FanDuel open up as seven and a half point favorites over the Toronto Raptors. So, you can go on FanDuel right now and you can bet the Cavs to win the East to win the finals or just to win game one by seven and a half points over the Toronto Raptors. FanDuel is the place to go. You need to head to FanDuel.com to get started. That's fuel.com. F-an due.com. FanDuel, play your game.
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Game 82 is a weird one, right? Like, there's nothing really to take away from this game as a whole. There are some individual performances worth talking about. I do want to begin by saying um Jaylen Tyson, Max Streus, the two guys from what I would expect to be the playoff rotation for the Cavs, they did play in this game. So Jaylen Tyson played 26 minutes. Max Shus played 18. All 18 of Max's minutes came in the first half. Uh Jaylen Tyson did get some run in the second half, not very much. I think he played one stint in the second half and that was that. I asked Kenny Atinson before the game why those guys were playing. said with Jaylen just coming off the injury, they wanted to let him find rhythm and I think it was important that he did play. I thought it was the right decision as I talked about on the show the other day. Thought it was the right decision for him to play. And the fact that he hit a few threes, I think is a really good thing because going into the playoffs, had he not played in this game, it meant one that he only would have played one game from March 19th until the start of the playoffs, which would not have been good. So getting him a little extra run, even if it's 26 minutes and not the biggest deal in the world, but getting him some additional time on the floor thought was smart. The fact that he hit a few threes probably a good thing to help him find his rhythm because I don't know how much Jaylen Tyson is going to play. I don't know where his spot in the rotation is going to be, but at some point the Cavs are going to need Jaylen Tyson. So getting him on the floor, getting him some minutes, getting him some run thought was a good thing. As for Max, Kenny said, "When Max Drew says he wants to play, Max Truce plays like it there's not a there's no disagreeing with him and it was a similar thing coming off an injury and just keeping his rhythm and you know, he didn't have a great game, but I thought he moved around well and truthfully that's all that matters." Like Max Juice historically has been somebody that has had some really good playoff moments and I would expect nothing less from Max when the playoffs begin for the Cavs this upcoming Saturday.
Now, for some other guys that I don't necessarily anticipate having a big role or any role for the Cavs in the postseason, but I do think deserve a few minutes of conversation here are Tyrese Proctor, who had 198 and eight. Um, he is somebody that I think is a real player. He has been, I think, really impressive in what he's been asked to do because considering he was picked, I believe, what was it? 49th overall, like late in the second round, you don't often see guys from that part in the draft coming to make an impact. And any legitimate minutes for Tyres Proctor this year, expecting anything from him is not fair. That's just it's not fair to expect a second round rookie on a team that has championship aspirations. It's not fair to expect that guy to make an impact. And Tyrese at times did. It's not as if he was awesome all the time. He certainly went through some rookie growing pains, but I thought he had a really strong rookie year and this was another really good example. He had a good game. I thought he had a really good fourth quarter against Atlanta on Friday night as well. Didn't necessarily talk about it a ton, but I think that he had a really strong rookie campaign. And I would not be surprised whatsoever if Tyrese Proctor is either in the rotation or on the fringe of the rotation next season. We don't know what this Cavs roster is going to look like. It could look pretty different, but I think Tyresese Proctor is going to be a big part of what they do. Now, I'm not saying he's going to be a star, but can Tyrese Proctor be a 25 minute per game player two years from now? I don't see why not. And the comparison I'm going to make again is unfair here because Tyrese Proctor is a rookie that was drafted in the second round. But I look at what Jaylen Tyson has been this year and I do not expect Tyrese to make the jump that Jaylen made from where he was last year to where he is now. That's not fair. However, I also look at this and think Tyrese is a little bit ahead of where I thought Jaylen was 365 days ago. Now, I didn't see everything behind the scenes with Jaylen, obviously, and he did go out and have a good game 82 last year when the Cavs sat everybody against uh the Indiana Pacers, I believe it was. So, he had a good game 82 as well, and that was kind of a jumping off moment for him. Then he went out and had a really strong summer league. And I will expect Tyrese Proctor to go out and have a really strong summer league. And again, it's not fair to expect Tyresese Proctor to go out there and be a rising star next year, but I also think he's ahead of where Jaylen was this time last year. And I don't know what it's going to look like, but I really do believe that Tyresese Proctor's got an NBA future. I think that he's somebody that can help the Cavs.
Um Naquin Tomlin, I thought he was really good in this game as well. He had 24 points, hit four threes, had seven rebounds, five assists, only had um one foul in 33 minutes, which that's I think real growth for Naquin. Like if you watch him play and maybe it's because the role that he was in is different. Obviously, the competition was not very good. This Wizards team was really bad, but he has been a little over aggressive and I thought that he was really in control on Sunday and I think that's a good sign. Thought Olivier Sar did some really good things. I was impressed with some of the things that he did. I don't know what the future holds for him, but I thought he did some good things. And then lastly, I think Tristan Anoruna has a chance to be a guy. I do. Um I don't know what it's going to look like. I don't know how real this shooting is because he had an awesome season in the G-League with the Charge. He was really, really good. We'll see him at summer league, I assume, this year for the Cavs. And I think that he's got a chance, if the shooting is real, he's got a chance to be an NBA player. And I thought that he had a solid game for the Cavs on Sunday. Had 13 points, hit a couple of threes, played 24 minutes, was a plus six. Like just had three steals. He he I I think he's got a really good feel for the game. Might be one of the best ways I can describe it. I don't know that like he blows me away athletically, but if he can shoot the way that he shot in the G-League this year as an NBA player, he's got a chance to make it. So, I do think that there were some good things that come out of game 82, even if ultimately the best thing on Sunday that I think happened for the Cavs was the Boston Celtics beating the Orlando Magic.
But that's going to do it for this edition of Locked on Cavs. You can find the show anywhere you get your podcast. It's Apple, that's Spotify, that's on YouTube as well. If you could please do me a favor and make sure you're subscribed wherever you get the show. That's Apple, that's Spotify, and again, that's YouTube as well. And as we get out of here, hit the thumbs up button and click that notification bell on YouTube if you've not done so already. And I'll be back tomorrow talking more about the Cleveland Cavaliers.