Eye(s) on the prize

Darius Garland impressed me last night

Donovan Mitchell has gotten the lion’s share of the attention for the Cavaliers early this season, and deservingly so. He’s an incredibly high-profile acquisition who is playing quite well, averaging 31.1 points per game on a 48-44-86 shooting line, with a career-high 7.1 assists per night average. Last night against Boston, he had only his second poor shooting game of the season (11 of 27 from the field, 3 of 9 from deep), but made a few huge shots and largely held his own defensively while guarding Jayson Tatum for a significant portion of the stretch run.

Of course, Mitchell is not the only All-Star guard on the Cavs, which is easy to forget because the other guy had missed pretty much the entire season to date before returning last night, looking like this:

Danny Cunningham @RealDCunningham

Here’s a good look at Garland’s eye as he goes through his warmup tonight via @roblorenzoespn.

Ros Gold-Onwude informed us on the ESPN broadcast that Darius Garland can see just fine when looking straight ahead or to his right, but when he looks left, his vision is blurry and tinted red due to the blood that is still in his eye. And this dude wound up with 29 points, 5 rebounds, 12 assists, and only 1 turnover in his first game back — against one of the best defensive teams in the NBA.