Matchup history · 2025-26

Cade Cunningham vs Jalen Suggs

Across 10 meetings and 96 matchup possessions, Cunningham scored at essentially his normal rate against Suggs. This is a neutral matchup on the numbers, not an edge in either direction.

The numbers

Each figure sits next to Cunningham's own rate against every defender he faced, which is the only fair comparison for this unit.

Points per matchup possession

0.36vs 0.34 season

In line with his season rate.

Field goal percentage

48%vs 44.7% season

+3.3 points of field goal percentage, on 25 shots in the matchup.

10
Meetings
96.3
Matchup poss.
35
Points
12/25
FG
7
Turnovers

Possessions here are partial matchup possessions, only the stretches these two were actually matched up, so points per possession runs far below the roughly 1.1 a full team scores. Every figure is meant to be read against the same player's own season rate in the same unit.

Recorded games: 2025-10-29 to 2026-05-03

This ledger covers 10 tracked meetings, starting with ORL at DET on 2025-10-29 and ending with ORL at DET on 2026-05-03. It includes only per-game assignments with at least two partial matchup possessions; meetings or brief assignments absent from the feed are not treated as zero.

Cade Cunningham scoring while matched with Jalen Suggs — 2025–26
Date / NBA gameFinal score (away–home)CompetitionPartial poss.PointsFGTO
2025-10-290022500129ORL 116 – DET 135Regular Season14.600/20
2025-11-280022500072ORL 112 – DET 109Regular Season18.742/50
2026-03-010022500875DET 106 – ORL 92Regular Season10.772/41
2026-04-190042500101ORL 112 – DET 101Playoffs10.120/21
2026-04-220042500102ORL 83 – DET 98Playoffs310/00
2026-04-250042500103DET 105 – ORL 113Playoffs4.831/11
2026-04-270042500104DET 88 – ORL 94Playoffs8.952/22
2026-04-290042500105ORL 109 – DET 116Playoffs7.352/21
2026-05-010042500106DET 93 – ORL 79Playoffs731/40
2026-05-030042500107ORL 94 – DET 116Playoffs11.252/31
Total10 recorded meetings96.33512/257

Competition context

Regular Season: 3 meetings, 44 partial possessions, 11 points and 11 shots; 0.25 points per partial possession.

Playoffs: 7 meetings, 52.3 partial possessions, 24 points and 14 shots; 0.46 points per partial possession.

The pooled figure combines different competition settings. Compare the phase rates before using the overall number: repeated playoff assignments can dominate a season-long pairing.

Does one game drive the result?

The largest assignment was ORL at DET on 2025-11-28: 18.7 partial possessions, 4 points and 2/5 shooting. It supplies 19.4% of this pairing’s recorded exposure and 20.0% of its shots.

Removing that game leaves 9 meetings and 77.6 partial possessions. The scoring rate changes from 0.36 to 0.40, against the same complete season baseline of 0.34.

The descriptive comparison changes from within 10% of baseline to above baseline. Start the film review with that largest game; the overall headline depends on which meetings you include. The 10% band is an editorial description, not a confidence interval or a prediction.

Baseline and film-review plan

Cade Cunningham’s full 2025–26 tracked baseline contains 5,547.7 partial matchup possessions, 1906 points and 733/1640 field goals against all recorded defenders. It includes this pairing. The baseline uses the same two-possession per-game floor and combines the same competition types; it is not a team offensive rating.

The pairing accounts for 1.7% of that tracked exposure. Its shooting rate is 48% versus 44.7% in the baseline. Read the shooting and scoring figures together, then inspect the possessions that produced them; neither records the coverage call or help responsibility.

  1. Review the largest assignment above. Tag the first action, initial defender, help, shot location and result separately.
  2. Compare with the smallest recorded assignment: ORL at DET on 2026-04-22, 3 partial possessions and 1 points. Check whether the same action appears before calling it a repeatable tendency.
  3. Write one coverage question to verify in another game. The tracking table cannot identify a scheme, isolate switches, or show unrecorded meetings.

Sources and publication checks

NBA player-matchup tracking, distributed in the SportsDataverse matchup release; dates, teams and final scores from its NBA calendar release. Individual game links identify the source event; they do not promise free video. HoopBrief calculates the totals, exposure shares and one-game removal above.

This report does not yet pass the publication gate: 6 recorded games, 150 partial possessions, 25 shots, complete dated game context, a usable complete scorer baseline, and exact reconciliation of game totals with the summary. Passing the gate makes a report auditable, not causal. These historical figures are not 2026–27 statistics. Open Matchup Lab and choose a season for current coverage.

How to read this

These are the possessions the two were matched up, not a clean isolation of one defender against one scorer. Help, coverage calls, foul trouble, rest, and shot luck all live inside the same numbers, and 10 meetings is a small sample for any of them.

So a gap here is a reason to pull the film on these possessions, not evidence that the defender caused it. The useful question is what the offense tried in this matchup and what it stopped trying.

Both scouting reports

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Aggregated from NBA player-matchup tracking for 2025-26, across all competition types. Possessions are partial matchup possessions and retain up to one decimal place here. Figures describe what happened while these two were matched up and do not isolate one player's effect on the other.

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