The Cleveland Cavaliers are proving that they’re the team to beat.
Remember when everyone was clamoring about how the Cleveland Cavaliers were not any good before the playoffs started? It seemed like every basketball critic had something negative to say about the defending champs.
“They don’t play defense.”
“They can’t beat the Warriors.”
“They probably won’t get out of the East.”
How does all the hate look now?
Would anyone bet against the Cavs at least reaching the Finals?
After Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Toronto Raptors, LeBron James downplayed the Cavs’ blowout win by calling it simply “a step in the right direction.” He described a team that is getting closer to the way it needs to play, but is not quite there yet.
That’s right, a team that has not yet lost in the playoffs is not where it is supposed to be yet. James also said the Cavs would play better on Wednesday night in Game 2; they did.
In Game 3, as the Raptors gave their best shots while missing starting point guard Kyle Lowry, the James Gang took over in the fourth quarter to turn a back-and-forth game into a blowout.
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What the Cavs are doing in the postseason is an illustration of what I said in an article I wrote in April. This is a team with championship pedigree, and is in complete control of what they are doing.
People were quick to point out the team’s defensive flaws and its generally lackluster play throughout the course of the regular season. A few of us argued that they were coasting and that they had not “flipped the switch yet”, but many experts were set in their opinion that the Cavs were simply not a championship-level team this year.
I truly am of the mindset that the Cavs loved the criticism and the doubt that came their way this season. Or at the very least, it did not bother them in the very least.
Colin Cowherd, a sports television and radio personality for Fox Sports, said on his show The Herd a few weeks ago that LeBron James was a “seasonal employee,” implying that James elevated his play greatly when the playoffs came around.
James has been to six straight NBA Finals series and is, now, second all-time in playoff scoring.
Naturally, he is not going to care a whole lot about a Saturday night game against the Los Angeles Clippers in the regular season.
James gets it, and his team has followed his lead. The Cavs are focused, and have been all season, on June. When you are focused on something so distant, you tend to coast at times—and many basketball analysts and critics out there were prisoners of the moment.
“They can’t just flip the switch.”
Uh, yes they can; they are doing it before our very eyes.
Cleveland is playing well, simply because it is time to play well. The Cavs fooled the basketball world into believing that they were severely flawed, when in reality they are better than ever.
The Golden State Warriors likely wait at the end of the tunnel, a team that everyone considers the prohibitive favorite to win it all. With their roster, they are deserving of that title.
But partly for that reason, I contend that Cleveland is the true favorite to win it all. The pressure is not on them, a rarity for a team that is the defending champions, and that could play a huge role in a match-up that Cleveland already holds a clear psychological advantage in.
Let us not forget, the Cavs were the underdogs last year. Yet, they managed to pull off three straight wins against a 73-9 team that had won the year before. James and the Cavs have been here before. They are still the champs, until proven otherwise.
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Do you think the Cleveland Cavaliers are the team to beat? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section or Twitter @KJG_NBA.