Ty Jerome is searching for answers at the worst time

Down 0-2 to the Pacers is not the most ideal time to work through issues.

Ty Jerome has been the feel-good story of the Cleveland Cavaliers' season. The growth of Jerome’s role has been almost hard to keep up with. From reserve, potential rotational player, to pivotal piece in a postseason series—this was not on my season predictions for the Cavaliers.

Heading into the postseason, Jerome was poised to be a big component of what the Cavaliers were hoping to achieve. After a great series against the Miami Heat, Jerome was tasked with making up for the lack of star power due to injuries to Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, and De’Andre Hunter. Through two games, it has been far from what many have grown to expect from Jerome.

To say Jerome hasn’t played his best through two games against the Indiana Pacers would be putting it nicely. Throughout the regular season, you could describe Jerome’s play with words and terms like reliable, solid, spark plug, tide-turning, momentum-creating, and remarkable. In Round 2, it’s almost as if you could use the antonyms of these terms, and they would encapsulate how Jerome looks in this series.

What has gone wrong with Jerome? There could be many hypotheses as to why Jerome’s momentum-creating play has ground to a detrimental game of “let’s work through this.”

The leading theory could be that he is going from sixth man surrounded by an elite starting lineup that the Cavaliers have, to being part of a patchwork lineup with injuries to key players. Jerome only started three games in the regular season—two in November against the Charlotte Hornets and New Orleans Pelicans, and one more at the end of the season against the Pacers. Jerome averaged 25 points and 5 assists in those games looking like a natural starter.

There has been a noticeable effort by the coaching staff to keep Jerome in a consistent role. Now, with their backs against the wall and looking for darts to throw since Game 2 of the Miami series, they’ve had to improvise. When the Cavaliers were only missing Darius Garland, Jerome looked solid, averaging a stat line of 15.5 points, 6.5 assists, and three rebounds per game. The stakes in those games were a lot lower, though—the Cavaliers had a two-game lead and quickly separated themselves from the Heat, winning the final two contests by 47.5 points.

Jerome just hasn’t had that composure that has been his calling card this season. He’s almost played with a James Harden (ironic given the playoff struggles) style of dictating the pace and style of play that best suits his game. That quick twitch, manipulating the opposing defense, obscure floater, and shot creation out of thin air didn’t seem sustainable, yet through a 70-game sample size in the regular season, he proved it wasn’t a fluke.

Now, those same shots and sequences that were becoming commonplace have become a glaring hole in the Cavaliers' offense. Jerome has looked like a player working through a rough spell.

Through the first two games of the Pacers series, Jerome has shot a combined 9-34 (26%) from the field, including 1-8 (12.5%) from three. That stat line, as nauseating as it looks, is actually buoyed by Game 1’s 8-20 performance. In total, Jerome has managed to score 23 points on 34 shot attempts through two games.

It has left the coaching staff in a really tough position without key ball handlers. Players like Craig Porter Jr., Isaac Okoro, and Sam Merrill are being asked to bring the ball up the court just so Donovan Mitchell doesn’t have to endure an insane usage rate. At the end of Game 2, Kenny Atkinson wasn’t locking in Jerome as one of his final five, swapping Jerome for Okoro in key moments.

Now, it’s natural that players have peaks and valleys. The playoffs put a magnifying glass on these types of performances, and when they happen on back-to-back nights, it is really glaring. With the nature of the postseason, it is no surprise that X is currently a cesspool of anti-Jerome propaganda. While the hard truth is that the Cavaliers could have been even a Game 1 performance from Jerome away from winning Game 2, the Cavaliers had plenty of non-Jerome-related issues that plagued them down the stretch.

If the Cavaliers have to play Game 3 with a similar amalgamation as what we saw in Game 2, Jerome needs to re-center himself. The mindset through the first two games is detrimental to the team and is almost self-sabotage.

I believe that Jerome can turn it around. There were decent looks for Jerome—almost all the shots just seemed to fall short. As much as we love the Jerome back-breaking threes and contested floaters, when they miss and the misses stack up, it’s some of the most hair-pulling basketball you will watch in the postseason.

For Jerome and the Cavaliers, looking at the film and having some days to reset can turn this series around. The talent hasn’t vanished; the composure and consistency have. That is an easier fix than finding the talent to replace what Jerome provides on a night-to-night basis.