Predicting how the Cleveland Cavaliers will do against the Central Division

How the Cavs stack up against the Pacers

The Indiana Pacers are a team, that just like their division rivals in the Bucks, I could see representing the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals in 2020.

The Pacers are a well-balanced squad with two very good young bigs that should man the starting 4/5 positions now in Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner (the NBA leader in blocks last season, per Basketball Reference), and the addition of former Buck Malcom Brogdon via reported sign-and-trade this offseason should help them hold firm until Victor Oladipo comes back from a reported ruptured quad tendon that ended his last season well before the All-Star break.

According to Indiana president Kevin Pritchard (and h/t the Indy Star‘s Matthew VanTryon and subscription required after a certain amount of views), Oladipo could feasibly be back in December or January. Last year, Oladipo had 18.8 points, and was posting career-bests with 5.6 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game (per Basketball Reference) before his injury, and also had 1.7 steals per contest, and his on and off-ball defense was incredible last season, too.

The Pacers still ended up being the East’s fifth seed and were swept by the Boston Celtics, but Indy again, didn’t have Oladipo, and did not have Brogdon at that time. Realistically, though, Brogdon, combined with new pieces such as T.J. Warren (who was acquired via trade from the Phoenix Suns) and Jeremy Lamb, will still make the Pacers a really tough team for the Cavaliers to compete with.

Sabonis, who had 14.1 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.9 assists in only 24.8 minutes per game in 2018-19 (per Basketball Reference), combined with the stretch and rolling big abilities of Turner, will be really difficult for Love and a combination of likely Nance, Thompson/Henson, Zizic and potentially at times two-way big Dean Wade to handle.

That’d especially be the case with Brogdon, and later down the road, Oladipo and feasibly new Pacer T.J. McConnell getting penetration after beating Sexton/Garland and/or Jordan Clarkson, Brandon Knight/Matthew Dellavedova (though the last three are all expiring) often are hard screens set.

Throw in the on-ball creation of Lamb via pull-ups and drives, along with Warren in that regard and in the mid-post/along the baseline, and those two both being improved catch-and-shoot three-point shooters in recent seasons (Warren did shoot 42.8% from there last year, per Basketball Reference, though there could be regression there), and the Pacers’ offense will be really difficult for Cedi Osman and the Cleveland Cavaliers to contain.

Though the loss of Bojan Bogdanovic stung a bit for the Pacers, I’d expect Indy’s offense to be more multiple and more explosive with more players capable of creating for themselves next year, and as a result, their offensive rating should be considerably better than 18th in the NBA, as it was last year, per NBA.com.

For the record, though, even with Oladipo only appearing in 36 games last year, the team still had a net rating of ninth overall (per NBA.com).

Even in the first two meetings when the Pacers won’t have Oladipo in the early part of the 2019-20 season, the Cavs will be at a loss at most positions, and Sabonis, though he’s not nearly the on-ball defender Thaddeus Young is, is still a smart defender that is hard to move in the post and is good off-ball, and could carve Love up on the other end.

With the way Indiana, even if Brogdon does miss time (he has only played in 48 and 64 games the last two seasons), plays sound team defense and rarely is out of position, even with an elite point-of-attack defender in Oladipo for a good stretch, it’ll be difficult for the Cavs to get drive-and-kicks, and I’d think the rookies would struggle against a well-oiled and still hard-nosed Indiana team.

The 2019-20 Cavs’ record prediction against the Pacers: 0-4

Pre-All-Star break (which even includes a stretch minus Oladipo), Indiana had the fourth-best net rating in the NBA.

They got better with the aforementioned additions and also factoring in talented draft pick big Goga Bitadze, a player who does have question marks but could provide big man depth, and the likes of T.J Leaf and Doug McDermott, a knockdown shooter, and I can’t say I see Sexton, Garland and the rebuilding Cavs beating Indiana at all next season, with roster turnover likely to come at some points, too.