Cavs top Jazz for 11th straight win at home; three takeaways

1. Cedi SZN

The Cavaliers rookie that Twitter is obsessed with had the best game of his young Cavalier life on Saturday.

Cedi Osman played a career-high 23 minutes, and scored a career-high 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting from the field. Osman played so well down the stretch, that Lue kept him in for the final 15 minutes of the game.  That move paid off, as Osman had three key offensive rebounds, and got a key steal in the final minute off of Jazz rookie Donovan Mitchell.

Afterwards, Osman stressed to reporters that he just wants to play his best to help the team win.

“For me, it’s really amazing being on this team,” Osman said after the game. “We have great players, great coaches. This is a championship team. From the first day when we came as new players, we understood we have to leave as champions. From the first day.”

“I’m trying to play my best basketball before, because of that,” he continued. “I know what’s going on, but the team is trusting me and I’m getting confidence with them.”

Cedi: “we have great players and great coaches and this is a championship level team” pic.twitter.com/Oe2GJQAr61

— Ashley Bastock (@AshleyBastock42) December 17, 2017

It’s pretty clear that the team and coaches are gaining confidence in Osman, especially considering they left him in a game that remained close down the stretch. A lot of that has to do with how hard he plays night in and night out.

“He’s always active,” Lue said. “He has great hands, plays hard, and sometimes he gets over anxious, sometimes he fouls jump-shooters because he wants to contest every shot. But he plays hard every single night, and that’s all you can ask. I mean, you’re not going to be able to stop these guys in the NBA every single night, especially one-on-one, but if you compete and give effort every night, that’s more than you can ask for, and that’s what Cedi does.”

Ty on Cedi: “he plays hard every single night” pic.twitter.com/HYCRbY19pS

— Ashley Bastock (@AshleyBastock42) December 17, 2017

Even the King himself had plenty of praise for the rookie.

“I said it this morning when you guys asked about Donovan Mitchell, I said ‘the one thing about this league is that when you get an opportunity, you start gaining confidence,’” LeBron James said. “Obviously that is what has been happening with Cedi. The coaches have confidence, we trust him on the floor. Whoever is on the floor with us, we trust. He’s on the floor, and when you make play after play after play, you say ‘OK, I definitely belong in this league.’”

Twitter should be plenty happy about that.

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