As NBA playoffs near, Cavaliers’ Darius Garland is finding a higher gear

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NEW YORK — Darius Garland came to Madison Square Garden on a nearly two-month shooting slump that is now over.

Garland ended it with aplomb Friday night, leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to a 23-point comeback for a 108-102 win with 26 points on 10-of-17 shooting. The 3s still aren’t falling for him, except for the one he tried in the fourth quarter in which the net barely moved, so on target he was from the top of the key in a tight game against a worthy opponent.

In fact, Garland made all six of his shots in the final quarter, which began with Cleveland trailing 86-78. There was an audacious drive into the lane and circus shot over Knicks center Mitchell Robinson, and there was that 3 on the ensuing possession he drained for a 97-95 advantage.

This was, on paper, a “meaningless” game for Cleveland. The Cavs have already sewn up home-court advantage throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs as the No. 1 seed. Donovan Mitchell (left ankle sprain) is done for the regular season — fine, there’s only one game left, but still, he’s missed the last three — and De’Andre Hunter, Sam Merrill and Ty Jerome were also out. It could look even leaner than that Sunday in the season finale against Indiana.

The game didn’t start well for Cleveland — no one falls behind by 23 in the first half on a hot streak — and coach Kenny Atkinson actually said to the rotation players he had in uniform during a timeout: “Let me know if you want to play. If not, fine, I’ll play the young guys.”

They responded, and it wasn’t just Garland. Three players — Garland (12 assists), Evan Mobley (16 points, 10 rebounds) and Jarrett Allen (11 points, 13 rebounds) — produced double-doubles. Max Strus was brilliant with 19 points and five 3s, and Isaac Okoro produced 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting off the bench.

It was a good, sound win for a team that was great for five months and just OK for the last one, just in time for the NBA’s “real” season to get underway next weekend. The Cavs await the last of four possible teams to advance out of the Play-In Tournament.

What made it all the sweeter was Garland’s performance, given that he entered the game shooting just 40 percent from the field and 34 percent from 3-point range since the All-Star break, a slide that resembled the tough season he endured last year when his numbers dipped across the board and he shot just 45 percent (37 percent from 3). In making the All-Star Game this season, he was right at the 50-40-90 line (making half of his shots overall, 4-of-10 on average from 3 and 90 percent of his free throws). So, in two months, to see such significant drops in his shooting percentages was a cause for concern, even if Garland wasn’t worried.

“I’ve just been trying to get back in the gym, get some shots up, get some work in and see it go through a little bit,” Garland said. “It happened (against) Chicago, and it happened tonight, so the work is showing.

“Going into the most important part of the season, that’s the whole mission, that’s the whole goal, is to ramp up heading into the playoffs.”

Made ya look. @dariusgarland22 | #LetEmKnow pic.twitter.com/GEVrPXn9MM

— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) April 12, 2025

As he mentioned, this is two good shooting nights in a row for Garland. When Cleveland clinched the No. 1 seed Tuesday against Chicago, Garland was 10-of-17 from the field with six 3s. Granted, the Bulls were not playing most of their top players, but the Knicks had all their stars other than Karl-Anthony Towns in uniform, and Garland torched them in the fourth quarter.

Garland said his teammates — some of them in uniform (Strus and Mobley), some of them not (Hunter and Jerome) — challenged him to “go win it” in the fourth quarter, “so that’s what I did.” He is trying to make a case to be the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year and entered Friday’s game shooting 53 percent from the field and 45 percent from 3 late in the fourth quarters of close games this season.

With his 13 points in the fourth quarter, Garland has now scored at least 10 points in the final frame of 10 games. He lit the Knicks up for 15 in the fourth quarter at the Garden back on Oct. 28 and has kept it going all season.

“It’s crunchtime, and they look to me to handle the ball and make plays,” Garland said. “It’s truly an honor, especially with the team that we have and the talent we have, them wanting me to have the ball and to make the right plays. It means a lot to me.”

Garland performing as he has the last two games with the playoffs approaching, well, it means a lot to the other Cavs, too.

“It makes us infinitely better,” Allen said. “I don’t even think he missed a shot in the fourth quarter. He did everything right — even on the defensive end, he was making an impact. If he’s like that every single night, we have a great chance to go all the way.”

After a season like this — Cleveland spent large swaths of it with the NBA’s best record, reeling off three winning streaks of at least 12 games and going 56-10 at one point — teams who do this well are expected to reach the Finals. Perhaps the Cavs won’t quite have that kind of pressure on them because of who they could see in the conference finals, the defending champion Celtics.

As Allen suggested, for them to have a chance against Boston, they need the version of Garland they had Friday. And that’s not how Garland has performed in his two previous playoff runs. He’s shooting 43 percent from the field and 36 percent from 3-point range in the postseason, and in all three series, he’s struggled with the elevated physicality of the playoffs.

Confidence has also been an issue, or at least it was during last year’s postseason run, when Garland suggested he was unsure of how to play within Cleveland’s offense (next to Mitchell, with J.B. Bickerstaff as coach) after a tough night in Game 3 against Orlando (2-of-10). Generally speaking, opponents will try to attack Garland on defense; he has to mitigate any liability on defense with elite shotmaking and playmaking.

Which is why, if you wanted to find reason for concern, Garland’s regression as a shooter since the All-Star break could have sounded an alarm. Garland explained why he wasn’t worried.

“I’ve found a good balance, a good flow, and spacing is tremendously better than last year and the year before that,” Garland said. “It makes my reads a lot easier, especially when I’m attacking downhill, getting into the paint.”

If Garland was crediting, without saying it, the arrival of Atkinson with a more diversified offense from Bickerstaff’s heavy pick-and-roll scheme, so be it. But then Garland mentioned Mobley’s dramatic increase in volume and accuracy as a 3-point shooter (he’s made more 3s this season than in his first three years combined and is shooting it at a 37 percent clip).

“That’s one of the main reasons, (too),” Garland said in explaining why his confidence didn’t waver when he started to miss more shots. “The whole mentality changed for literally all of us.”

Before the game, Atkinson said “I feel good” about the way the Cavs are playing as the regular season winds down, even though they were 7-7 in their previous 14 and were ranked 30th in offensive rebounds allowed during that stretch. He has to feel even better after what he saw in the second half against the Knicks. And especially with what he saw from his All-Star point guard.

“That’s two really good performances in the last three games,” Atkinson said. “He had a little dip there, which happens, a little post-All-Star dip. … He’s getting back to getting in the lane, making great passes. Just controlled the game with his speed, and they had (Mikal) Bridges on them. It was a really tough cover. They had been really physical with him.

“I love how he fought through the physicality because that was a playoff performance, an elite playoff performance by Darius.”

(Photo: Dustin Satloff / Getty Images)

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