The Cavaliers still have a fighting chance at the postseason

Monday was the first of March; in other words, was 3-1. Of course, back in 2016, the Golden State Warriors, who set the record for the most wins in an NBA season with 73, held a 3-1 series lead over LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson, Richard Jefferson and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

All Golden State needed was one more victory to cap off their historic season. But the Warriors were not able to get that elusive fourth win as the Cavaliers became the first team in league history to come back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals.

Fast forward the clock to the 2020-2021 season, and the Cavaliers are currently riding a four-game winning streak with the most recent victory coming on Monday at the Houston Rockets. That followed an impressive W at the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday in overtime, albeit without Tobias Harris for Philly.

And coincidentally enough, the Cavs’ second W of their winning streak was against the Rockets in Cleveland on Wednesday. Granted, Houston is clearly in quite the tail spin, having lost 12 straight, and they are desperately missing Christian Wood.

Anyway, Cleveland hasn’t made the playoffs since 2018, which was also the last year LeBron was in Cleveland before departing for the Los Angeles Lakers. And in fact, the Cavs’ recent success has only been because of James. But because the Cavaliers are in the Eastern Conference, they still have a shot at making the playoffs.

The Cavs still have a fighting chance at the postseason.

The Cavs sit in 13th place in the East but they are still within striking distance of the top 10, and they don’t necessarily have to worry about being in the top 8; instead, they can worry about qualifying for the top 10. That’s with teams in the 7-10 positions being set to participate in a play-tournament to see who qualifies for the playoffs and who doesn’t.

As of right now, the Cavs sit behind the seventh-place Toronto Raptors (17-17), eighth-place Charlotte Hornets (16-18), ninth-place Indiana Pacers (15-18), 10th-place Chicago Bulls (15-18), 11th-place Atlanta Hawks (14-20) and the 12th-place Washington Wizards (13-19). They moved up past the Orlando Magic (13-22) after Monday’s win.

Perhaps the Cleveland Cavaliers would have a better record if the injury bug hadn’t continually bitten them throughout the first half of the season. Unfortunately, it seems like Kevin Love has gotten the worst bite from the injury bug as he hasn’t able been in game action since Dec. 27 due to a high-grade right calf strain, of which he aggravated.

It’s not just Love who is injured, though, as forward Larry Nance Jr. is still seemingly set to miss most of March with a fractured left hand, and the likes of Taurean Prince and Cedi Osman (back) have been banged up as of late. Prince, who has been dealing with left ankle soreness, did not play again on Monday, but Osman did, on the plus side.

The Cavs have been playing better as of late, anyhow, as Darius Garland, whose clearly paced the Cavs with 5.9 assists per outing, has gotten the likes of Collin Sexton, Jarrett Allen, Isaac Okoro and others quality looks.

Garland it doesn’t seem suffered anything too serious, either, and did return in Monday’s game after reportedly tweaking his left groin late in the third, and helped close things out. And Sexton, in particular, has continued to lean into his role as Cleveland’s primary scorer (23.8 points per game).

In addition, it has been encouraging to see Okoro more assertive offensively in the past 5-6 games, and he’s hit 41.4 of his three-point attempts in his past six outings. Plus, Dylan Windler has seemingly gotten into a nice groove heading into the second half of the season, as KJG’s Dan Gilinsky hit on.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the rotation changes once Nance Jr. and Love are all healthy again. On one hand, you want to put a guy like Kevin Love back into the starting lineup because of what he can do offensively.

Albeit with how Nance has played this season when healthy in replacement of Love before in terms of the all-around sense, and with how he’s been second in steals per game this season, maybe Love as a supersub-type player might make more sense, as KJG’s Zane Harris touched on before.

Because of various factors, we haven’t been able to see what this team looks like at full strength. Hopefully, we’ll be able to see more of that in the second half of the schedule.

If the Cavs can get off to a fast start, they’ll set themselves up for a potential playoff push, or perhaps having a shot at the play-in first at least.

Nonetheless, it would still be far more likely Cleveland’s headed for a high lottery pick; with a lighter second half, though, maybe they’ll keep winning ways going more so and have a fighting chance.