What Darius Garland’s return means for an unrecognizable offense

The Cleveland Cavaliers they are on the 1 yard line with the return of All-Star point guard Dario Garlandand it could come as early as Wednesday night against the Philadelphia 76ers.

Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson isn’t exactly comfortable confirming that return, as he’s said in the past, not wanting to get ahead of himself. He noted that Garland had a full practice on Tuesdayhowever, “We’ll see how they react,” Atkinson said. “Let’s see what tomorrow morning looks like.”

Inquiring further about Garland’s status, Atkinson said the final step would be getting the go-ahead from the performance staff. He has taken steps from going 1-on-1 all the way up to live 5-on-5, but this will be a “feel” situation. Cavs head coach Stephen Spiro indicated to him that Garland’s conditioning was good, so there won’t be much of a minute limit.

“I have to read it,” Atkinson said. “It was like when we played Indiana last year, I guess he was 14 days out, 15 days out of practice, and we just had to read it like, ‘Hey, you’re in three minutes, we’ve got to get you out.’

“I just have to communicate with him and see where he’s at. And against Indiana last year, sometimes he’d ask to come out, we’d give him two minutes, come back. So I was able to see a little bit of that.”

Getting Garland back will be a huge boon for Cleveland, which has seen more than its fair share ups and downs offensively.

“He creates an edge, doesn’t he? He can create an edge just with speed,” Atkinson said of Garland’s ability. “So we’re becoming a faster team. And then, he obviously takes a lot of paint and makes other people better. I always say he’s an elite passer. I put him in the elite category, so we’ve got that.”

“We have more shooters when we’re fully healthy,” Dean Wade added. “When those guys come back, they’re very, very high-IQ basketball players. So the ball’s going to shoot, it’s going to move. There’s going to be a lot of energy. They know how to bring their own energy, different shooting skills in general. They’re just going to bring back so much firepower and different big parts of our offense that we miss the past. So they miss the past.

The scoring was reduced, the perimeter game was too frequent in the half court, and Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley had too much on their minds to start the year. It made the offense of wine and gold unrecognizable.

Fortunately, all of these areas can be improved with Garland’s presence.

“I think De’Andre (Hunter) is in the world, Dean (Wade) is in the world, they’re just going to get easier shots. Our shooting quality is decent on our threes right now, but it can be better. He’s going to help make it better.”