Cavs: Collin Sexton dominates Pistons and 3 other things from win

Collin Sexton continues to prove himself a franchise cornerstone for the Cavs in his dominance of the Detroit Pistons on Wednesday.

Collin Sexton, aka the Young Bull, was at it again against the Detroit Pistons. The Cavs won 122-107 agaisnt the Pistons and got their record back up to 9-9 on the year behind Sexton’s 10-of-14 night shooting from the floor and going 8-of-10 from the freethrow line. His 29 points were a game high, and only Andre Drummond (23 points) and Jermi Grant (26 points) had more than 20 points on the night.

While the Cavs won handidly, the offense was plagued with static ball movement and turnovers, with Sexton, Drummond and Darius Garland combinging for 12 of 16 commited. Drummond was taking awful shots early on, plagued by the defenese of Mason Plumlee, who made Drummond work all night.

The team hit a nice 51% of their shots from behind the arc but as a team only took 21 shots, with their three leading scorers from the starting five taking only three all game. That’s been a problem all year and against a bad team like the Pistons, you can get away with not taking a lot of three points shots, but against the Celtics and Lakers, that’s a different story.

The team sometimes seems out of rythm offensively without Larry Nance to help facilitate the passing. With Garland back in the lineup, many had hoped he’d be able to faciliate more offense for others but he only had four for the game.

If it wasn’t for Taruean Prince and Isaac Okoro, however, the team would’ve had no real ball movement at all.

What did we learn from this game?

Collin Sexton continues to be effecient

It’s impressive that Collin Sexton continues to score at the clip that he is. He isn’t taking bad shots, and he isn’t shooting volume for the sake of shooting for volume. He’s become a great overall scorer. His facilitating needs work but that’s partly due to how fast he plays. He doesn’t let others have time to set up, which is a reflex he’ll develop, hopefully, in time.

Cedi Osman gets frozens out

Sometimes it feels like the offense freezes out Cedi Osman. He’s the second-best all-around player on the team, and his skillsets are wasted at times when he’s sharing the court with Garland. Osman didn’t need a big game, thankfully, as he only had eight shots but his usage for the game was abysmal. The team can’t afford to let Osman go cold, as he is very much a rhtym player and needs to be utilized better.

Dyland Windler is showing his defensive abilities

A lot of players had at least two steals against the Pistons on Wednesday but a lot of them are known or semi-known commodities. This is only Windler’s ninth pro game in the NBA, so we’re still trying to figure him out and understand what he does and doesn’t do well. Right now, Windler’s playing some great defense. Hopefully he gets more opportunities to score, because he may just be the steal of the 2019 draft if he continues to develop.

The Cavs can’t win if they trade both Andre Drummond and Javale McGee

With trade speculation abound, another strong outing by the Cavs have shown just how much they needed interior defense and offense. This is a team that can make the playoffs this year as constructed. While it’s understandable the team may move one of Drummond or McGee, to lose both would be too much for this team to stand. They are driven by defense, and for them it starts inside with Drummond, McGee and Jarrett Allen. The Pistons game showed just how vital guys like Drummond are, having five steals in the game all on his own. Losing that for a late-first round draft pick really doesn’t make sense.