Let me preface this by saying I love Garland and think he’s still one of the better guards in the league but I’m not crazy about his playstyle the last at the moment. There was a stretch two years ago before Mitchell was year where I it felt like we had the next Steve Nash and we had a perennial 20 and 10 point guard. But since Mitchell has came here, he’s almost changed his style from a true PG to someone who plays like Mitchell? It seems like he has a score first mentality right now which makes him and Mitchell kind of redundant. In 2021, he average almost 9 APG. Since then, it’s been decreasing. I understand that sometimes he has to play that way but it seems like it’s been going on since last year as well. Am I just crazy, or does it seem like his play style has changed a bit?
I think there’s some recency bias with Garland. There were stretches of last season where he was our best offensive player and he hasn’t had a game this season where he’s looked like that guy. Not sure if it’s the hamstring, or just a confidence issue with him right now but I still expect him to turn it around this season. He’s always been small but the defense looks a little worse this year too.
Last year my main criticism with garland was that he wasn’t aggressive enough and needed to shoot more threes. He averaged the same number of assists as he did the year before. Rewatch the 3rd quarter of game 4 against the Knicks if you want to see just how deadly an aggressive Garland can be.
The problem we had before we got Mitchell is teams would just focus on pressuring garland late in games and bc we had no other ball handlers or offensive creators he would have to play iso hero ball something he’s not all that good at. Getting a strong 2 or 3 guard was a primary goal of the Cavs that summer so garland could play more off ball where he’s very effective (that’s why he and Rubio were such a good fit together).