Ty Jerome Shines in First Start With Cavs, Drops Career-High 24 Points

Matt Newton | 2 Hours Ago

Ken Blaze-Imagn Images

With the Cleveland Cavaliers off to their best start in franchise history, they decided to give their star Donovan Mitchell the night off on Sunday to rest him up for a big matchup against the Boston Celtics the following Tuesday. As a result of Mitchell's absence, former UVA basketball star Ty Jerome got his first start for Cleveland and his first start in an NBA game in nearly two calendar years.

Jerome made the most of that opportunity, matching his career-high with 24 points on 9/15 shooting (60%) and 4/7 from beyond the arc (57.1%) while also dishing out eight assists to just two turnovers to lead the Cavaliers to a 128-114 victory over the Charlotte Hornets. With the win, the Cavs are now 15-0 on the season, becoming just the fourth team in NBA history to start 15-0 and tying the second-best start to a season in NBA history.

Watch Jerome's highlights from his career-night against the Hornets on Sunday in the video below:

Jerome last scored 24 points in a game on December 29th, 2021, when he was a member of the Oklahoma City Thunder and playing against the Phoenix Suns, the team that drafted him back in 2019. Sunday night was Jerome's first start in an NBA game since January 20th, 2023, when he started for the Golden State Warriors against the Cleveland Cavaliers. He made the most of that opportunity as well, scoring 22 points and dishing out eight assists in 41 minutes of action in a Warriors win over the Cavs.

Of course, Sunday also marked the first time Jerome started a basketball game for a team called the Cavaliers since his final game at Virginia on April 8th, 2019, when he recorded 16 points and eight assists to lead UVA over Texas Tech to claim the 2019 NCAA National Championship.

After missing most of the 2023-2024 season with an injury, Jerome is having a resurgent campaign. In 15 games, Jerome is shooting 59.4% from the field and 54.1% from three-point range and is averaging 10.7 points and 3.7 assists per game, all of which either match or surpass his career-best stats in those categories. He has scored in double figures eight times and has posted four or more assists eight times.

According to ESPN's Player Efficiency Rating (PER), a stat that measures performance per minute while adjusting for a team's pace of play, Jerome is the 10th-most efficient player in the entire National Basketball Association this season with a 25.04 PER, just a few ticks behind his former teammate Stephen Curry. Jerome is also 11th in the league in true shooting percentage (71.9%), which takes into account all types of field goals, including free throws.

Ty Jerome will look to build off of this career performance, continue his strong start to his sixth season in the NBA, and help the Cleveland Cavaliers sustain their historic start when they take on the Boston Celtics on Tuesday at 7pm (TNT).

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