Kyle Anderson believes Cavs are ‘better team’ without Darius Garland

The Cavaliers was better in the first round without Garland, but that’s because he wasn’t fully healthy.

Beating an opponent by 92 combined points in two playoff games is impressive. It’s also something that can lead to some conclusions that are simply untrue based on the 84 games the Cleveland Cavaliers played before sweeping the Miami Heat in the first round.

One of those is that the Cavs are actually better without All-Star point guard Darius Garland. That’s something that Miami forward Kyle Anderson believes.

Anderson was asked during Miami’s exit interviews on Wednesday what happened between games 2 and 3 that led to the blowouts. The Heat were competitive in the first two games of the series. They weren’t afterward. What changed?

“You want my honest answer?” Anderson said. “I don’t mean to throw shots at anybody. Or even entertain what was going on between them. But they look like a better team without Garland on the floor.

“I don’t know the numbers or anything. I think it played more into their favor once Garland wasn’t on the floor for them. They were able to dictate the tempo, get more stops on defense, it was hard for us to score. They had more guys out there on defense. Once we came across that, it made it tough for us.”

Garland missed the last two games of the series in Miami with a left great toe strain. It’s an injury that kept him out of two games during the last week of the regular season and was clearly bothering him in the playoffs. Specifically, the second half of Game 2, where he appeared considerably hobbled on defense.

Look at some of these defensive possessions in the fourth quarter of Game 2. Garland may not be known for his defense, but he has much better lateral quickness than he showed in the fourth quarter.

In each of these plays, he’s either unable to stay with his man on the perimeter whenever he had to shift his feet laterally or help and recover. He couldn’t reliably switch directions — which is what puts the most stress on your toe — when he was asked to do so.

That isn’t something that Garland has struggled with throughout his career and especially not this regular season.

It’s clear that his toe was bothering him.

From that perspective, Anderson was right.

The injured version of Garland we saw at the end of Game 2 was a liability. It’s why Cleveland had a 125 defensive rating in the 32 minutes Garland played in Game 2 and a 97 defensive rating in the 16 minutes he sat.

That, however, doesn’t mean that the Cavs as a team are better without Garland going forward. He’s proven to be a top guard in the league on a nightly basis while being able to hold his own defensively, including in tight matchups with the Boston Celtics.

There’s no reason to believe that he wouldn’t return to that skill level, provided he’s able to properly recover from the toe injury.