Cleveland Cavaliers at Detroit Pistons player grades: At least Collin Sexton is doing interesting things

So, this wasn’t a great game. But as always, here are player grades. Share yours for the Cavs’ loss to the Pistons below.

Collin Sexton: B

His defense in this game was brutal — he often looked like he was a top spinning round and round and round. But he also scored 18 points, made two threes for the third straight game and had four assists vs. no turnovers. He absolutely has to keep this starting point guard job.

Cedi Osman: B-

Osman played with more energy and his typical brand of creativity than he did against the Wizards. There was a lot of good passing, him pushing the ball up the floor and semi-decent rotations on defense. It’s good to have him back, even if he’s still struggling to make shots.

Rodney Hood: C+

Rodney Hood was aggressive, and good, for the first part of the game. And then he just disappeared from the flow.

Larry Nance Jr.: D

Nance had no chance against Blake Griffin in his game and finished with a team-worst plus/minus of -28.

Tristan Thompson: C-

Andre Drummond outplayed Thompson, but Thompson did have decent stats. He also did try to organize the zone defense from the middle of the floor, and it’s not his fault that the Cavs’ wings had to clue how or when to rotate.

Kyle Korver: D

It was very weird to see Korver miss two free throws. And he had a rough 1-5 shooting night to boot.

Jordan Clarkson: B-

Clarkson took and made some crazy shots, but also took and missed some ugly looks. This wasn’t his worst night, but not quite as on as he’s been at other points. He also was all over the place on defense.

David Nwaba: B

Asking him to defend Blake Griffin is a step too far for Nwaba. And he missed some shots. But plus-minus of +16 jumps off the box score and he does a lot of smart things that no one else on the Cavs really does, like defend and know where to be on defense.

Ante Zizic: B+

Hey, a good Ante Zizic game! His 5-7 shooting night and six rebounds in 18 minutes will draw the most attention. But he also did a nice job of going vertical when posted up by Andre Drummond in an effort to negate Drummond’s strength advantage. This may have been his best defensive night of the season.

J.R. Smith: D-

Smith had one nice make. But otherwise, he was very disinterested, didn’t really try when the Cavs played zone and only played six minutes.

Andrew Harrison: C-

Harrison is just fine as a minutes eater, but him shooting 1-6 on some decent looks killed his night.