Is Darius Garland a defensive liability for the Cleveland Cavaliers?

The Cleveland Cavaliers may have to admit that Darius Garland is part of the problem.

The Cleveland Guardians have finally snapped their five-game skid against a Lonzo Ball-less Charlotte Hornets. It was a game that went to double overtime and should have never made it to one, let alone two different overtime.

The defense has been atrocious and the team is struggling to stop even the weakest of offensive teams so far, dating back to their first game against the Los Angeles Lakers. The effort and execution aren’t there.

While injuries to Jarrett Allen and Dean Wade haven’t helped matters, the fact is most of the damage is coming from the perimeter. The Cavs are playing much worse defense when Darius Garland is on the court than when he’s off. Now, we could say that it’s the combo of Garland and Donovan Mitchell, two guys not known for the defense but that’s not it.

Through 15 games, Mitchell has missed two. Once against the Timberwolves during the bad streak, and once against the Pistons on the good streak. During his time leading the team without Garland, opposing defenses shot an average of 28.2 three-point attempts per game, and made just 34% of their shots.

Next to Garland, or only with Garland, opposing teams are attempting 35.33 attempts from three per game, and are hitting around 36%. Before the Cavs played the Hornets, it was at 38%, but the Hornets shot just 31.8% percent from three and gave the Cavs a win the Hornets should’ve taken.

It gets worse.

Darius Garland is making the Cleveland Cavaliers’ defense worse

In the six games that the Cavs had Mitchell during the win streak, the Cavs gave up just 102 points per contest. Without both, they’re allowing just 88 points per game, but that was against the Pistons, to be fair. With Garland in the lineup, the 102 points against leaps to 115 points per game.

They are averaging 13 points more on defense with Garland in the lineup. Surely his value on offense negates such a drastic swing, right? Nope, with Garland, the team is actually worse offensively, averaging just 113.8 points per game, when they were averaging 118 points per game prior, without him.

It gets even worse. Looking at the advanced metrics prior to the Hornets game (so these may have changed for better or worse), Garland is not having a good year.

Looking at his RAPTOR score first on defense, he’s pulling down a -1.9 score. This was his second-worst score so far of his career on defense (the number has since changed after Charlottes’ pitiful outing). His PER is just 18.64. That’s Kyle Anderson and Mason Plumlee territory.

Up until his outing against Charlotte, his Box+/- for the season has been -0.9, which is right in line with past outings. Yet, the biggest issue comes from his involvement in the lineups.

When looking at the top 25 most used lineups the Cavs used, we found that the ones that had Dean Wade in them (of the top 25), we found they had a score of 84.92, with a net rating of +25.5 on average.

The ones that had Garland in them? They have a defensive score of 106 with Garland in the line-up and just a rating difference of +5.79.

Now, we only have a small, bite-sized part of the season in the books, but facts are facts. With Garland in the lineup, teams are taking more three-point attempts, making more threes, and are having a generally easier time with Garland on the floor than not. What’s the fix? I don’t know, it’s not a simple solution, but right now we’re going to have to wait and see if the Cavs can get their defense fixed.

Otherwise, conversations will need to be had.