CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The last time Larry Nance Jr. saw a performance like that was here in Cleveland. It was when James Harden, then with the Houston Rockets, came to town and poured in 55 points. For Cavaliers head coach J.B. Bickerstaff, Collin Sexton’s late-game scoring binge had him harkening back to the days when he was with Harden in Houston. Taurean Prince thought about Kyrie Irving’s dazzling Brooklyn debut in which he scored 50.
Cleveland was the NBA’s epicenter Wednesday night. All eyes were on the Nets. It was Irving’s first game in two weeks. The debut of the league’s newest Big Three.
But on a court that featured some of the NBA’s brightest stars -- Harden, Irving and Kevin Durant -- no one shined brighter than Sexton.
This was his arrival -- out of obscurity playing for the cellar-dweller Cavs and into the national spotlight as the cornerstone of the league’s most pleasant surprise.
“I don’t pay enough attention to what the hell is going on to know the perception about him around the league. But I know I watch him and I don’t know what year this is for me -- 17 or 18 -- this is not normal. He’s not a regular NBA player. He’s a dynamic scorer,” Bickerstaff told cleveland.com following the 147-135 double-overtime win. “We have to win more games and put him in position to close more games where people respect what he can do and what he’s capable of. That’s our responsibility and that’s our goal. The more he does it when the moments matter most, I think people will gain more respect for him.”
No better moment than Wednesday.
In his first game back following a five-game absence because of a sprained ankle. With the Cavs having a chance to creep back to the .500 mark after hitting an injury-filled rough patch. On the heels of Kevin Porter Jr., considered by many to be the most naturally gifted of Cleveland’s young core, being exiled for unprofessionalism. Against the Nets, the NBA’s fascinating super team and one of the title favorites. Against Irving, the night’s honored guest who has an extensive catalogue of cutthroat shots and whose 2017 trade demand eventually led to Sexton’s arrival -- the two forever connected.
“I am in Cleveland, I do wear No. 2, and I do wear Kyrie’s. That’s gonna be linked together. I just got to take it. I can’t control what people say, but I can control what I do,” Sexton admitted. “It was good to go against him tonight. I definitely accepted the challenge, and I knew it wasn’t gonna be easy. Just the simple fact that it’s Kyrie, he’s coming at you each and every night ready to go and tonight was a good one.”
That’s an understatement. Try remarkable. Unforgettable. One of the best individual performances in franchise history. A 42-point masterpiece that included 20 straight for the Cavs during a scalding stretch, 22 combined points in both overtimes and 15 of the team’s 20 in double OT as Sexton threw in shots from all over the floor.
He became the second Cavs player to score 20 in a row over the last two decades, joining LeBron James.
As Sexton’s 3-point bombs continued to bury Brooklyn late, Irving couldn’t help but chuckle and smile. Durant shook his head. Sexton’s teammates went ballistic.
“He was just on fire tonight. He was unconscious. He was out of his mind. He was making all shots. It was beautiful to watch,” said Cedi Osman, who scored 25 points and stabilized the offense early while Sexton was shaking off the rust. “You can see, there’s a lot of difference with Collin’s game. Obviously last year he was (good) and this year he’s even better.”
“It got to a point where I was talking trash before the shot even went in,” Jarrett Allen said following his Cavs debut against his old team. “I didn’t know he had any of that in him. I heard he was going off in Boston one time, but this was another level.”
“Confidence is one thing that kid does not lack ... and for good reason,” Nance said.
With the game tied at the end of regulation following an Irving putback, the Cavs called timeout. There was no doubt what Bickerstaff wanted. He put the ball in Sexton’s hands, ran some motion with Isaac Okoro and Osman, and let Sexton go one-on-one against Irving. Only Sexton dribbled the ball off his leg -- a costly miscue at an inopportune time that gave the Nets a chance for the game-winner.
Sexton didn’t sulk or look toward the bench -- a bad habit early in his career. He went back on defense and drew what looked like a foul against a driving Irving. The play was overturned following Steve Nash’s challenge, and the two teams gathered at center court for a jumpball, which killed the rest of the clock.
Sexton had a few more rough possessions during overtime -- missed floaters, layups and 3s -- but his tip-in with 10.7 seconds cut Brooklyn’s lead to one.
“Young Bull, he really saved me on that play,” Osman said about his airball. “That was a hell of a play too. He kept us in the game.”
Then Sexton canned a cold-blooded dagger in Irving’s face with 1.2 left to tie the game. That bucket, which resembled some of Irving’s late-gamers with the Cavs, effectively sent the compelling showdown into a second OT.
That’s when Sexton erupted.
“He was exhausted,” Bickerstaff said while laughing. “Somehow, some way, he willed himself into making shots. You become a much better coach when you’ve got guys that can do that. Don’t overthink it or overcoach it. Just let Collin be Collin and take us home. He was able to do it.”
Even with some of Sexton’s stumbles, Bickerstaff never thought about going away from him, not with the Nets switching everything late.
“Where we are right now offensively with the bodies we have, he needs to be a focal point,” Bickerstaff said. “He can beat his man. He can put pressure on the defense. They know what play you’re going to run, they know what set you’re going to run. It was almost like a playoff game. The playoffs come down to can you beat your man? We’re confident Collin can beat his man. It was literally trying to just put him in position where he could go and play a one-on-one basketball game.”
So, what was Bickerstaff thinking at that point?
“The old Doug Collins clip -- give the ball to Michael (Jordan) and get the f--- out of the way,” Bickerstaff explained. “Just give him space to go do his thing.”
Sexton did, keeping the Cavs from squandering a 14-point lead, answering every shot Brooklyn’s trio made, and continuing to prove his doubters wrong.
In his rookie year, Sexton fought off his own teammates’ biting remarks about his readiness and unwarranted spot that some believed came because of his draft slot. He arrived with a reputation as a poor shooter, the draft pick the Cavs should’ve traded to get another win-now player to chase a title in LeBron’s final season. Then came incessant chatter about his assist totals and “natural” position.
When Sexton finished the 2019-20 season with a furious scoring flurry that put him in the company of some of the conference’s best players, it supposedly didn’t count because it came at the end of the season when the opponent didn’t care, because “someone had to score” on a bad team, or because the Cavs weren’t good enough to win games, making those hollow numbers -- none of those factors being Sexton’s fault.
At this point, critics are running out of things to say.
“For whatever reason, and I wasn’t here early on, there’s this narrative about Collin,” Bickerstaff told cleveland.com. “We’re incredibly lucky to have him. I look at his ability to put the ball in the basket and there’s not many guys in our league who can do what he does. There’s 20-something guys out of like 480 or whatever the number is that can do what he does. Then there’s another smaller group of those guys who can do what he does in pressure-filled moments.
“The hard part for Collin is, and it’s just because of circumstance, he hasn’t had a lot of those moments because of the record that we’ve had in the past. He has the ability to excel in those moments. That’s not for everybody. It’s just not. There’s dynamic scorers and great players. But not everybody can do what he does in those moments. None of us are perfect, right? But Collin doesn’t deserve the s--- they say about him.”
Very few players are capable of going toe-to-toe, shot-for-shot with KD, Kyrie and Harden. Sexton did. Not many can turn Irving’s highly-anticipated return to Cleveland, just the second time since destroying the Cavaliers’ championship hopes, into a footnote. Sexton did.
This isn’t new. He’s been doing it since last December. Wednesday just happened to be the night Sexton finally forced everyone to stand up and take notice.
And change their flawed perception.
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