Cavaliers' little-used center Walter Tavares breaks hand in practice
Cleveland lost a little bit of bench depth Saturday
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1 min read
One of the strongest parts of the Cavaliers is their incredible depth. The superiority of Cleveland's bench in comparison to the rest of the East has shown through in the playoffs while other teams have had their's exposed. They say that the bench doesn't matter in the playoffs, and while there is some truth to that, every good team needs a bench to hold the line. That's what the Cavaliers' bench does for them.
An argument could be made that Walter Tavares breaking his hand in practice Saturday robs Cleveland of some of that depth, but he has been a non-factor for Cleveland pretty much all season. He has played in exactly one game.
"Cavaliers center Walter Tavares suffered a fracture in his right hand during practice on Thursday. An X-ray Thursday and CT scan yesterday confirmed the injury. Tavares is out indefinitely and his status will be updated as appropriate."
In 24 minutes Tavares actually had a pretty decent game in that one appearance with 10 rebounds and six blocks.
What's more interesting about this is that Cleveland is running full-contact practice during the playoffs. Without many ways to keep the team engaged during this long break between series Tyronn Lue must be resorting to having them play each other. However, with Tavares breaking his hand it seems unlikely the Cavs are going to keep running full contact. They have bigger games to worry about.
