Cleveland Cavaliers: The “Other Cavaliers” will be key in Conference Finals

The “Other Cavaliers” aka anyone on the Cleveland Cavaliers except LeBron James will be key in the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Cleveland Cavaliers, as they should be, are favorites in the Eastern Conference Finals, partly because of their 4-0 sweeping of the Toronto Raptors. That sweep was made possible by the heroic efforts of LeBron James combined with significant contributions from the “Other Cavaliers.”

The Cavaliers role players received their name from a Saturday Night Live skit that was never actually televised. The skit, which can be seen below, was basically each Cavalier just finding a non-impactful way to assist LeBron James.

To be honest, it’s a pretty accurate replica of the Cavs first-round series. However, SNL canceled the skit claiming the episode didn’t have the time to air it.

As for the Cavs actual team, their first-round series boiled down to the superstar nature of LeBron James.

In that tedious seven-game battle, James averaged 34.4 points, 10.0 rebounds, and 7.7 assists. He willed his team to victory. James didn’t have a single teammate score over 20 points in a single game throughout all seven. To make matters even worse, only ONE of James teammates even averaged over 10 points.

However, James was in full takeover mode, and to no one’s surprise, it was enough.

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While James has been a consistent force in both playoff series, the role players that surround James haven’t been. For the role players, this postseason has been a tale of two series. The first series was their disappearing act while the second series seemed to be their time to shine.

In their “time to shine” series, six players averaged double figures along with six of the seven rotational players shooting over 50% from the field.

It all started with JR Smith and Jeff Green stepping up, combining to hit over 55% of their shots from deep. With those two on fire, the Cavs were able to pound the ball into Kevin Love against a bigger Toronto Raptors team. Then, to top it all off, George Hill snuck his way into the conversation with 10.3 points per game.

The silver lining to the Cavs tedious seven-game series with the Pacers is that it might have actually woken these rotational players up. They’re awake and alive now, and if they get the same performance this series that they did in the last one, it could be another clean sweep.

During three regular-season matchups, it was the Cavs non-rotational players like Jordan Clarkson and Rodney Hood, two players that lost their rotational spot throughout the playoffs, that dominated in those matchups.

While James has been playing on a different level, during the regular season, he didn’t dominate the Celtics like he could’ve. In the postseason, Boston, who has one of the league’s most renown coaches in Brad Stevens, might be able to limit James.

On top of Stevens behind the wheel, they have a combination of size, speed, and bodies to defend James all game long. If the C’s can slow him down at all, they have a fighting chance to win the series, especially if the role players don’t show up.

Even with a limited LeBron James, this team will get it done and get it done quickly if the six other rotational players are knocking their shots down.

Next: 3 things to look forward to in Cavs-Celtics Eastern Conf. Finals

We’ve seen the importance of them before, and this time the “Other Cavaliers” have a chance to help vault their team to basketball’s biggest stage, the NBA Finals.