NBA Playoffs: Lack of Adversity Concern for Cavs?

Undefeated in the NBA Playoffs mean no adversity. A concern?

The Cleveland Cavaliers’ playoff experience has been nothing shy of a cakewalk. Should we be concerned about the lack of adversity the team has gone up against in the playoffs?

While the Golden State Warriors and Oklahoma City seem to be in the middle of back-and-forth series out west, the Cavaliers have seemingly taken full control of the Eastern Conference Finals in just one game.

Game 1 of the East Finals was a very accurate representation of the Cavs NBA Playoff run thus far: completely dominant. Coming off of back-to-back sweeps of the Detroit Pistons and Atlanta Hawks, the Cavaliers went and out and dismantled the Raptors, routing them 115-84, in game one of the Eastern Conference Finals.

Unfortunately for the Cavs, both teams in the Western Conference have been through adversity during the playoffs and will be battle tested by the time the Finals roll around.

The Golden State Warriors were without two-time MVP Stephen Curry during their second round match-up against the Portland Trailblazers. Although the Blazers are a rather young team, Damian Lillard and company put up a tough fight against the reigning champions.

The Thunder, on the other hand, were put to the test by the San Antonio Spurs in a series that went to six games. Beating any Greg Popovich coached team in the playoffs is no feat to take lightly.

Now, the two teams are tied at 1-1 in the Western Conference Finals, and seem primed to have a lengthy series.

Despite not losing a game through during the playoffs, the Cavs have faced some adversity in the first two rounds, just to a lesser degree than any team remaining in the playoffs. Both the Pistons and the Hawks put up good fights against the Cavs, but were simply outmatched.

LeBron James doesn’t feel that losing a game will make much of an impact on the Cavaliers long-term playoff success.

“No, I don’t think we have to lose,” James said via cleveland.com. “We don’t want to lose. That’s not what we’re here to do. We want to win every game that we step on the floor. We’ve been challenged in this postseason, multiple times by Detroit and also by Atlanta in the first two series. We just persevered and were able to come back from it and win those games. So, we don’t want to lose.”

Granted, the Cavaliers have had their fair share of adversity in the last year. On top of being without two of their best three players in the Finals last year, the team had to go through a coaching change in the middle of the season–a season that has had its ups and downs.

Although they haven’t had many hardships like their Western Conference counterparts in the playoffs, saying the Cavaliers haven’t persevered through any adversity is simply not true.

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“That’s not our mindset, should never be our mindset,” James said about if it’s good to go through a difficult postseason period. “I don’t get when people say you need to lose a game to go through something. I think we’ve gone through some things and if we happen to lose a game we have to be able to bounce back from it, but that’s not our mindset.”

At the end of the day, a loss early on in the playoffs isn’t what gets a team prepared for the Finals, it’s what they go through during the regular season that helps them get to their main goal–an NBA championship.

What do you think, will the lack of playoff losses haunt the Cavs in the long run?