Cavs’ Jaylon Tyson doesn’t want to ‘make it about me,’ so teammates do it for him

This one felt bigger than a single night.

The Cavaliers were short-handed again, on the road again, and staring down a tight finish against the 76ers. What resulted was the clearest snapshot yet of how far Jaylon Tyson has come.

Tyson poured in a career-high 39 points and then made the play that actually won the game, a perfectly timed drop-off to Evan Mobley for the go-ahead dunk in the final seconds of a 117-115 win. Scoring grabs attention. Decisions win games.

With Darius Garland and Sam Merrill out, Cleveland leaned on Tyson in ways nobody would have predicted a year ago. He responded by shooting 13-of-17 from the field, 7-of-9 from three, and a clean 6-of-6 at the line. He added five rebounds and four assists in 38 minutes that never felt rushed.

Afterward, Donovan Mitchell did not dance around it.

If Tyson is not at the front of the Most Improved Player discussion, Mitchell said, then the award has lost its meaning. Nobody walked into Philadelphia expecting a 39-point night from a second-year player thrust into that role. That, Mitchell argued, is the point of the award.

Coach Kenny Atkinson called it a five-star performance, but the praise kept circling back to the final possession. On the inbound, Lonzo Ball trusted Tyson. Tyson trusted the read. Mobley finished it.

That play told the story. Tyson could have chased 40. Instead, he chased the win.

“I just feel like it was a good team win,” Tyson told reporters. “I don’t want to make this all about me. Obviously, I did have a good game, but I feel like everybody made good plays… It was a good game, but I’m just glad we won. Get to celebrate on the plane and go to sleep.”

The numbers support the growth. Tyson is averaging 13.4 points, 5.3 rebounds, 2.0 assists, and a steal while shooting over 52 percent from the floor and nearly 48 percent from three in just over 27 minutes a night.

Teammates see it daily. De’Andre Hunter said Tyson has been one of the Cavs’ most consistent players, defending, shooting, and making the right reads without changing who he is.

“The scoring is one thing, but for the presence of mind as a second-year player to not try to go take the layup and be the hero, to go ahead and make the right play, that to me was just as big as anything else,” Mitchell said. “He could’ve tried to get 40. He could’ve at the moment [been] about him, but instead, he makes the right play to win us the game.

“That’s a special mindset. It’s one thing to have a big night, guys have big nights. But in the biggest moment, biggest situation in a crucial situation, he goes out there and does that.

That matters inside a locker room.

Cleveland has now taken three of the last four and continues to stack wins while reshuffling lineups. Nights like Friday explain why they keep surviving it. Tyson is not surprising anyone anymore.

He is earning trust, moment by moment, and on Friday, he earned it when the game was still hanging in the balance.

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