By james art 
Seven games into the new season and the Cleveland Cavaliers have established themselves as one of the best teams in the NBA to start the season. They haven’t lost a game and have outplayed their competition in historic fashion.
One of the reasons for that is the strong play of Darius Garland, who looks like a completely different player. New Cleveland head coach Kenny Atkinson gave a brief insight into what they look for from DG on any given night.
“He plays with swag. He also has that floater, but he also took nine triples. We need one more, we need ten. It was kind of a deal with him – ten a game. But he also receives [the shots] where he runs to the corner … Great shooter. Great player. He’s playing really well.”
Long-range shooting has always been DG’s forte, even when he was just a Vanderbilt recruiting prospect. However, he never averaged more than 6.7 3-pointers per game until this season, when Garland made 7.0 per game through the first seven games.
Atkinson has clearly focused on putting Garland in a position where he can shoot more threes, and so far it’s been a small sample of success. He shot 43 percent from the arc, which, if he can stay consistent, would be a career high for Garland.
We’ll see if DG can reach the ten threes and plays Atkinson wants from him at some point this season. He already came close, making nine attempts against the Orlando Magic and eight against the New York Knicks.
Garland averaged just 27.2 minutes per game to start the season due to Selveland’s wide margin of victory.
The Cavs need to have DG playing at an All-Star level if they want to make a deep playoff run this season. So far, that’s what we’ve seen from the point guard, but Atkinson still thinks there’s another level he can reach with more shot attempts.