Is the Eastern Conference Really This Bad?

Is the Eastern Conference as bad as everyone is saying? A look at the East.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are on a historic run through the Eastern Conference playoffs. They are undefeated in the playoffs thus far and are humiliating every opponent they’ve faced. This historic run makes us ask if the Cavs are that good, or if the East is just this bad.

Cleveland has turned the first two and a half rounds of the playoffs into their own exhibition of strength. The playoffs are supposed to be a grind with every game coming down to the final few possessions. Instead, the Cavs are running over opponents like a powerhouse college football team beats up on a small school nobody has ever heard of.

LeBron James is using the playoffs to prove why he is still the best player in the world. Kyrie Irving is showing the world just how good of a player he can be on both sides of the ball and deserves being in the same class as Steph Curry and Russell Westbrook as top point guards in the league. Kevin Love has finally found his role in the offense and is now a third option that can beat teams in the post and behind the three point line.

The Cavs also have the versatility that few teams can match. They can outrun teams and beat them in transition, but they can slow it down and beat you in the half-court. They can outshoot teams while still having the ability to dominate the paint. Cleveland also has the versatility to beat teams with a small ball lineup like they did against the Hawks, or they can use a more traditional lineup like they have so far against the Raptors. Coach Lue has the Cavs playing the best basketball in franchise history at the perfect time.

However, a team that was only two wins away from winning a championship last season, without two of their three best players, is receiving a lot of criticism for the quality of opponents they have played thus far in the playoffs.

Going into the playoffs there were four teams that legitimately had a chance of winning the Finals. Three of those four teams reside in the Western Conference. The Warriors had the best regular season in NBA history and the Spurs had one of the best regular seasons in franchise history. The Thunder haven’t had as historic of a season, but anytime you have two of the best players in the league on one team you have a chance of winning the title.

Many people believe that because the Western Conference has three of the four title contenders in their conference that they are far and away the better conference. However, outside of the three dominant teams in the West, the Eastern Conference is actually better. The numbers prove that. The eight Eastern Conference playoff teams had a combined record of 137-103 against the Western Conference with no teams having a losing record. The fourth through eighth seeds in the Western Conference had a record of 82-68 against the Eastern Conference with three teams with a record of .500 or below against the East. After the top four title contenders, you can make a solid argument that five out of the six next best teams are from the East.

With that in mind, the Cavs dominance throughout the playoffs looks much more impressive. The Raptors are nowhere near the caliber of the Warriors, Thunder, or Spurs, but they’re still a 56 win team with the fourth best record in all of basketball.

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The comparisons between Golden State and Cleveland will continue until they presumably meet again in the Finals. But comparing the opponents of the first two rounds, the Cavs opponents were much better. The Rockets were a weak eighth seed and the Trail Blazers are a team that couldn’t even play above .500 against the supposedly weaker East. The Pistons and Hawks were much more formidable opponents who had a combined record of 34-26 against the West.

The talk of the Eastern Conference being far inferior isn’t accurate. If the East was this weak, wouldn’t runs like this happen every year from the top seed? Whether the Cavs can beat the team that comes out of the West is one that won’t be answered until the Finals. But that doesn’t take away from the historic run the Cavs are on. What the Cavaliers are doing right now is unprecedented and shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Do you think the East is as bad as many are saying?