The return of Isaiah Thomas, or as people in Boston like to call him, "the little guy", has been long awaited. His first game as a Cavalier was last night, against the 19-18 Trail Blazers. He went 6-12, 3-8 from deep, in 19 minutes, while putting up 18 points. For the first game on a new team after an injury, these stats are actually quite impressive. The Cavaliers play the Celtics today, which has been a matchup that all NBA fans marked on their calendars after the trade regarding Kyrie Irving and Isaiah Thomas occurred. But, Isaiah Thomas will not be available because the game is on the second night of a back-to-back. Now, to the main question of the article, What will Isaiah do for the Cavs come playoff time?
First off, Thomas will provide the Cavs with depth at the point guard position, which is something they have lacked all season. They came into the season with Isaiah, Derrick Rose, and Jose Calderon. Thomas obviously was sidelined with his ongoing injury, while Derrick Rose took time off basketball to think about his future, after another injury, piling onto his ongoing list. Finally, we are left with Calderon, who we all know is just flat out not good enough to be your starting point guard if you want to be a championship contender. Another thing that Thomas will help with is taking some pressure of Lebron. When Kyrie was on the Cavs, he could even take some of those final shots, and game-winning attempts off of LeBron. Although Thomas is known for his 4th quarter heroics, in the final 20 seconds, I don't know if Thomas is the guy you go to, just because of his size, and the opposing team can put a big body on him, locking down his three-point shot. It is clearly true that Isaiah Thomas is a better regular season player than Kyrie Irving, but when the lights get brighter, the better Kyrie Irving gets, making him a better postseason player than Thomas. We all know that while Lebron James is on the Cavs, it doesn't matter whether they are the 1st seed or the 8th. They will no matter what, get to the conference finals, which is when they meet with, I believe, one of three teams. Raptors, Wizards or Celtics. This may be a little bias, but I believe the Celtics will see there way into the conference finals, and there are good and factual reasons to go with it. One, the Celtics have showed this year that they can compete with the Cavaliers. Also, since Kyrie Irving is proven to be a better postseason player then Isaiah Thomas, his all star- abilities with the help of young stars like Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, and the experience of Al Horford should be able to guide the C's to another conference finals.
After all these statements and predictions, the question arises once again. Does Thomas really help the Cavs in the postseason? The answer is simple. He will 100% help the Cavaliers, but the amount of help he will bring to the team will be decided by the progression of his injury, and the quality of basketball he provides the team alongside Lebron James.
