Cavs Top 3: Lauri Markkanen out-duels Nikola Jokic

Lauri Markkanen helped the Cleveland Cavaliers defeat the Nikola Jokic led Nuggets.

Friday night saw a crazy intense battle between the Cleveland Cavaliers and potential MVP-front-runner Nikola Jokic. While Jokic’s big game wasn’t a surprise in the least, it wasn’t Darius Garland or Evan Mobley that showed up the most against the Nuggets but fifth-year big-man Lauri Markkanen.

The Cavs defeated the Nuggets 119-116 in overtime on Friday.

Since coming back from a near-month-long injury absence, Markkanen has been averaging 17.6 points per game, 6.1 rebounds, while shooting 41.8% from the floor, 39% from three, and 83% from the floor. All while posting RAPTOR scores of +1.9 on offense and 0.0 on defense. He’s become one of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ most important players and with Jarrett Allen, Darius Garland, and Caris LeVert all missing significant time, Markkanen has helped keep the Cavs competitive.

To see him providing stability on both sides of the court is a breath of fresh air, especially with how his season started. he switched from power forward to small forward to make room for Evan Mobley to move from center to power forward and the move has worked. While the Cavs are struggling to close out games, that’s partly due to Allen being injured.

When the team is back to full strength come the playoffs, the Cavs will be a tough nut to crack.

Lauri Markkanen led the way for a Cleveland Cavaliers win over the Denver Nuggets.

Cavs Top 3:

1. Evan Mobley
2. Darius Garland
3. Lauri Markkanen

Evan Mobley gets the first point, scoring 27 points, collecting 11 rebounds, and shooting 50% from the floor. While his BPM was a -2 on the night, considering he was challenging Nikola Jokic (BPM -16), we’re going to count that as a win.

The second point-getter was Darius Garland, who had 25 points and 14 assists and manhandled the Nuggets guards all night; finishing with a game-high BPM of +25.

While Garland had a great game, Lauri Markkanen had a really great game. He finished with 31 points, 10 rebounds, four steals, three assists, on 11-18 shooting from the floor and 6-12 shooting from behind the three-point line.

Yearly Standing:

1. Darius Garland (75 points)
2. Jarrett Allen (68 points)
3. Kevin Love (59)
4. Evan Mobley (50 points)
5. Lauri Markkanen (49)
6. Cedi Osman ( 33 points)
7. Ricky Rubio (32 points)
8. Isaac Okoro (17 points)
9. Dean Wade (10 points)
10. Rajon Rondo (6 points)
11. Lamar Stevens (4 points)
12. Caris LeVert (4 points)
13. Brandon Goodwin (3 points)
14. Dylan Windler (1 point)