Cup of Cavs

Cup of Cavs: Cleveland Cavaliers News and Links for Wednesday, March 9

Some observations from Dylan Widler’s time with the Cleveland Charge.

By Jackson Flickinger@Akron_Jackson Mar 9, 2022, 5:00am CST

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Happy victory Wednesday Cavs fans!

The first sip

Dylan Windler has been spending most of his time this past month in the G League. He is averaging 15.1 points, 10.3 rebounds and 2.9 assists while shooting 34.1% from deep in the games he’s played for the Charge since the start of February (not counting Tuesday night’s game against the Motor City Cruise).

Those numbers don’t exactly jump off the page but we’ve seen steady progress from Windler throughout his stint with the Charge. The biggest improvement appears to be with his confidence which translates to being more aggressive offensively both on and off-ball.

“He’s been increasing his aggressiveness every game and that’s what I’m super excited about.” said Charge head coach Dan Geriot after Sunday’s game against the Long Island Nets. “He’s starting to recognize that. Starting to understand our offensive system which is similar to the Cavs but we don’t have the all-star point guard and the all-star center. It gets a little different that way. Usually he’s giving it back to DG [Darius Garland] all the time in a lot of the actions. Here, we let him do a little more. Be a little more creative in his game. That’s where the aggression is starting to go.”

We’ve seen that aggression on display lately. Windler finished Sunday’s game with 26 points on 8 of 14 shooting and 16 rebounds including a game tying tip-in to send the game to overtime.

Windler played with the most confidence I’ve seen from him this season on Tuesday evening. He finished that contest with 22 points on 8 of 15 shooting which included going 4 of 6 from distance. While the shooting numbers were impressive, his willingness to take defenders off the dribble in the half court and the purposeful movement off-ball made his game standout.

Windler rightfully fell out of the rotation for the Cavaliers this season. However, this roster could use someone with his elite three-point shooting in the future. While it doesn’t seem he can play his way back into the rotation this season, that doesn’t mean he can’t be an integral part of the 2022-23 team.