Ty Jerome’s Cavs teammates unsurprised by his massive playoff game: ‘Might be a surprise to other people’

The Cleveland Cavaliers started their stint in the 2025 NBA Playoffs off on the right foot with a Game 1 victory over the Miami Heat in their first-round series. Cleveland won Sunday’s contest at Rocket Arena by more than 20 points and got a major scoring boost from one of the best bench players in the NBA this season.

Reserve guard Ty Jerome didn’t even log 30 minutes of playing time against Miami, yet he finished with the second-most points of any Cavalier behind only star guard Donovan Mitchell. Jerome went off for a whopping 28 points, converted all but five of his 15 shots from the floor and also found nylon on five 3s.

Maybe folks who haven’t been following the Cavaliers closely this season were surprised to see Jerome show out on a grand stage, but Mitchell certainly wasn’t.

“It’s your first time in the playoffs? Sure didn’t look like it,” Mitchell said while sitting alongside Jerome. “This is who he’s been. This isn’t a shocker. I don’t think any of us are surprised at what he’s doing on a nightly basis. It is full circle to come back from when we were 8 years old, to my first basketball teammate, to now here we are. I know everybody’s going to react like this is a shock, but he’s been doing this for us all year.”

Another one of Jerome’s teammates — forward De’Andre Hunter, who was acquired by the Cavaliers leading up to the trade deadline — called the 27-year-old a big-game player.

“I’ve seen it a million times,” Hunter told Cleveland.com. “It’s normal to me. Might be a surprise to other people. Not to me. This is what he does in big games.”

Both Mitchell and Hunter have known Jerome and his basketball abilities for years, far before any of them began playing together on the Cavs.

Jerome was recently named as one of the three finalists for the Sixth Man of the Year award along with Boston Celtics guard Payton Pritchard and Detroit Pistons guard Malik Beasley, and rightfully so. He was an incredibly consistent offensive spark plug for a Cleveland team that won 64 games in the regular season and secured the top seed in the Eastern Conference.

The former University of Virginia standout averaged 12.5 points in just 19.9 minutes of playing time per game in the 2024-25 regular season, his second season as a member of the Cavaliers. Per 36 minutes, Jerome averaged 22.7 points per game.

Jerome was able to score so many points in his minutes during the regular season because he put the ball through the net with such great efficiency. He shot 51.6 percent from the field and 43.9 percent from 3-point range on 3.6 attempted 3s per contest.

In addition to everything else, he averaged 2.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game during the regular season, more numbers that would’ve been larger if he’d been on the floor more.

Certainly, Jerome had quite the notable playoff debut, and he will hope to play at such a high level once again when the Cavaliers look to go up 2-0 on the Heat on Wednesday night. That game will also take place at Rocket Arena, and the Cavaliers have been a force to be reckoned with at home all season long.