Cavaliers Star Hoping to Reverse Concerning Trend Before Playoffs

This time of year, NBA teams and players heading to the playoffs, want to be playing their best basketball. That's why two-plus months of Darius Garland's shooting struggles have reached a concerning inflection point for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

With just three games remaining in the regular season, they'd love to see him snap out of it just in time for a postseason run. A brilliant 28-point performance in a crucial win over the Chicago Bulls may have been just what the doctor ordered.

The Garland that showed up for Tuesday's victory was the Garland that had been celebrated for the first four months of the season. During that span, the 25-year-old had recaptured his All-Star form, on top of proving to be one of the most clutch players in the NBA this season.

That has largely remained true, with Garland still shooting over 50% in the final five minutes of a game when his team is either leading or trailing by five.

Where the concerns have percolated, however, are with his overall shooting numbers, which have noticeably fallen off a sharp cliff since Feb. 1.

Prior to that day, Garland's true shooting percentage for the season was a whopping 63.1%. That figure has dropped by exactly 10 percentage points in the two and a half months since.

A similar trend exists with Garland's two-point and three-point shooting percentages. Before Feb. 1, the Vanderbilt product was knocking down 42.5% of his shots from deep, and 56.3% of his two-point shots.

Since then, those figures have also dropped precipitously to 35.7% and 46.0%, respectively. It all adds up to a troubling trend for the Cavaliers' star guard.

Garland's floater has also escaped him during that span. Prior to the All-Star break, he was knocking down his floater at a clip of 59%. Since then, that's plummeted to 37.7%

The month of March was a particularly cruel one for Garland all on its own. His 39.9% shooting from the floor and 33.6% from three were both season lows for any singular month of the season.

On one hand, March was a tough month for the Cavaliers in general, with the team posting a season-long four-game losing streak toward the end of the month. At one point, head coach Kenny Atkinson even admitted that his team was "fighting the boredom" late in a season where the Cavs have largely run away with the conference.

Those lulls happen, even for the best of teams. So do shooting slumps for great players, which is why generally Garland deserves the benefit of the doubt. Tuesday was a major step in the right direction, as the Vanderbilt product shot 58.8% from the floor, including knocking down six of 10 three-pointers.

It was a much-needed and refreshing performance.

"Good to see something go through the net," Garland said postgame. "I've been BSing the last couple games, so it was good to just see a couple go through. My teammates, they was on me about just 'go and be myself' ... so it was definitely good to have one of these games for sure."

Three games remain for him to build upon his bounce-back effort and establish some crucial momentum just in time for the playoffs. Still, that's not exactly a long runway, especially considering head coach Kenny Atkinson is likely to prioritize his player's health the rest of the way.

"He needed that, we needed it," head coach Kenny Atkinson said of Garland's performance on Tuesday. "He needed to get his swag back. That's the Darius we've seen all year. Had a little dip, it happens, but that's the guy we need in the playoffs. Taking risks, obviously hitting the three but I felt like he was downhill, in the paint, sharing it. And when he gets the three-ball going, he's unstoppable."

Whether he plays or not, Garland's challenge for the next two weeks will be making those performances the norm again for the rest of April, May, and potentially even June.

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