{"id":638701,"date":"2026-03-04T11:30:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T11:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/638701\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T11:30:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T11:30:17","slug":"10-takeaways-from-cavs-113-109-win-over-pistons-jaylon-tyson-shows-why-hes-the-ultimate-role-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/638701\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Takeaways from Cavs 113-109 win over Pistons: Jaylon Tyson shows why he\u2019s the ultimate role player"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND \u2014 The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> did just enough to get past the conference-leading Detroit Pistons<\/a> 113-109<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you stop Cade Cunningham, you\u2019ll stop the Pistons. Head coach Kenny Atkinson called defending Cunningham \u201cthe key to the game,\u201d and understandably so.<\/p>\n

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Cunningham was effective as a playmaker with 14 assists, but was held to just 10 points on 4-16 shooting with five turnovers. This led to his team losing the minutes he was on the floor by 11.<\/p>\n

Cleveland slowed Cunningham down without the services of Dean Wade, which makes it even more impressive. Jaylon Tyson and Keon Ellis stepped up in this matchup. They both were effective picking up in the backcourt and were physical at the point of attack. It also helped that the rest of the defense was able to sell out to make him uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

Cleveland never allowed Cunningham to finish over just one defender in the paint. That led to most of their success on that end.<\/p>\n

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The Cavs\u2019 defensive strategy was clear; they were only worried about stopping Cunningham.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard for coaches because you got to pick your poison,\u201d Atkinson said before the game. \u201cDo you want Cade Cunningham shooting? Or do you want X, Y, or Z shooting?\u201d<\/p>\n

Atkinson didn\u2019t name names before the game, but it was clear who \u201cX, Y, and Z\u201d were afterward.<\/p>\n

The Cavs weren\u2019t concerned about players like Ausar Thompson or Tobias Harris offensively when they were on the floor with Cunningham. They were willing to cheat off them as much as possible if it meant being able to send an extra body Cunningham\u2019s way.<\/p>\n

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And on this night, it worked. Just look at this play below. The Cavs truly didn\u2019t care if Thompson and Harris were open on the strongside. And with the game on the line, Cunningham didn\u2019t either.<\/p>\n

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Conversely, the Cavs\u2019 role players are what won them the game. Dennis Schroder once again provided key scoring off the bench, Craig Porter Jr. was effective on the glass, Ellis was everywhere defensively, and Thomas Bryant filled in well for Jarrett Allen \u2014 who left the game in the third quarter with a knee injury<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More than that, the guy Atkinson has called \u201cthe ultimate role player,\u201d Jaylon Tyson, lived up to the billing. He provided great defense on Cunningham on one end, and outscored him on the other as he put up 22 points on 5-12 shooting from three.<\/p>\n

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It can\u2019t be emphasized enough how much Tyson has bought into being a role player. He has the skills and talent of an on-ball creator, but isn\u2019t asked to do that on a team with Donovan Mitchell and James Harden. And instead of trying to force it, he\u2019s become someone who does nearly all of their damage off the ball, in support of the stars around him.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t sound like much, but Tyson\u2019s willingness to shift his style of play this drastically from college a few years ago is a transition that not many in his position have easily made.<\/p>\n

Many role players now in the league have been groomed to play in a certain mold, which likely isn\u2019t in their long-term best interest. The often talked about three-and-D shooters are an archetype that skyrocket up draft boards or are coveted in free agency, but the ones who are actually the best in that role do much more than just play defense and shoot threes. Basketball will always reward the players who can do multiple things once the ball is in their hands.<\/p>\n

Tyson can do that. He processes the game at a high level, coming up as more of a primary scorer. He can run pick-and-rolls, attack the second side, and make quick decisions out of the short roll. Layer in becoming a lethal catch-and-shoot threat, and you have the makings of an indispensable glue guy.<\/p>\n

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The most exciting part about Tyson is that buying into this role will help him in every context he will be placed in throughout his career. You don\u2019t want to put a limit on someone of Tyson\u2019s skills. It\u2019s not inconceivable that he continues to grow as a scorer and becomes a first or second option on a team down the line. But even if he does develop that way, he will still need to play off of other varied teammates. With the skillset he\u2019s cultivated, he can easily do that.<\/p>\n

All the while, playing this way doesn\u2019t put a cap on who he is. The Cavs haven\u2019t tried to put Tyson into a box. They\u2019ve allowed him to expand his game in ways that make sense for him and the team, and he\u2019s continually taken advantage of it.<\/p>\n

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The Cavs are a tough matchup for the Pistons, even with just one of their two star guards back in the lineup.<\/p>\n

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Harden wasn\u2019t great by his standards on Tuesday. He provided 18 points on 5-17 shooting and turned it over five times. The lack of ball security is uncharacteristic for him. But just having someone who could command defensive attention and run the pick-and-roll besides Schroder made a huge difference.<\/p>\n

Detroit has continually struggled to contain Cleveland\u2019s bigs. Allen had a major effect on this game before he left with a knee injury, and Evan Mobley was once again able to get where he wanted inside. This has been a trend throughout the four games this season.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers aren\u2019t a finished product. Atkinson said after the game that this wasn\u2019t \u201cperfect by any means,\u201d and he\u2019s correct. They were forced to run some weird guard lineups, given they were down two of their three starting forwards for a chunk of this game. But this is the second time in a row they\u2019ve outplayed the Pistons<\/a> in drastically different ways. And both of those games came without the Cavs\u2019 best player, Mitchell.<\/p>\n

The Pistons are a good team, but so far, they haven\u2019t been able to enforce their style of play against the Cavs. They weren\u2019t able to change the game with their offensive rebounding and creating turnovers. And Cleveland has made it difficult for their best player.<\/p>\n

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There are real concerns about whether Detroit\u2019s style can translate to the playoffs, specifically, in a potential series with the Cavs. You don\u2019t want to read too much into regular-season games, but at the same time, there are plenty of reasons why the Cavs should feel confident if they met in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

I get why the anonymous Cavalier<\/a> said what they did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 The Cleveland Cavaliers did just enough to get past the conference-leading Detroit Pistons 113-109. If you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1026,7,909,305,193,14901,5759,1024,188,864,576,560,1178,2286,3627,3211,6,16,20081,11577,362,933,468],"class_list":["post-638701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ausar-thompson","tag-basketball","tag-cade-cunningham","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-craig-porter-jr","tag-dean-wade","tag-dennis-schroder","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-evan-mobley","tag-james-harden","tag-jarrett-allen","tag-jaylon-tyson","tag-kenny-atkinson","tag-keon-ellis","tag-nba","tag-ohio","tag-role-player","tag-role-players","tag-thomas-bryant","tag-tobias-harris","tag-washington-wizards"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116170682433639669","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}