The Cavs have a tricky 3-game road trip before the All-Star break

On Wednesday, the Cleveland Cavaliers hosted the San Antonio Spurs. Heading into that one, the Cavaliers were in good shape in the Eastern Conference, and they helped themselves by winning their seventh straight game at home in that contest, ultimately by a score of 105-92. Cleveland is currently third in the jampacked East (and the standings change so often).

After Wednesday’s game at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, the Cavs will now embark on a tricky 3-game road trip to close out the “first half” of the season, that being before the All-Star break.

With that in mind, we’ll take a closer look at the Cavs’ upcoming roadie here.

The Cavaliers and Indiana Pacers have already played two games against each other in Cleveland. Their first matchup was on Jan. 2, so just after New Years. In the middle of the third quarter, the Cavs trailed the Pacers 84-73. But then the Cavaliers put together a substantial scoring run to secure the win by a score of 108-104.

The Pacers came back for a rematch on Feb. 6 and they were clearly very upset about the way the last game ended. Approximately midway through the second quarter, Indiana had a lead 34-14. That’s a 20-point deficit the Cavaliers had to overcome! But the Cavs were able to overcome that seemingly insurmountable lead and pick up a 98-85 win, largely behind the fourth quarter efforts of Kevin Love and Cedi Osman.

For the first game of this tricky three-game road trip, the Cavaliers will be visiting Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis for Round 3 with the Pacers. Both teams are going to look different than rounds 1 and 2 as Caris LeVert was traded from the Pacers to the Cavaliers, then the Pacers traded Domantas Sabonis to the Sacramento Kings, with other pieces involved; Indiana reportedly ended up most notably getting back Tyrese Haliburton.

The Pacers might not be in contention for the playoffs or the play-in tournament, but they’re a scrappy team that will fight you until there’s triple 0 on the clock. So not ideal that the Cavs have to play them on Friday, especially in Indiana. For some reason, the Cavaliers have struggled in Indianapolis. It’s weird.

Then on Saturday, it will be Round 1 of what’s sure to be a tightly-contested boxing match with the Philadelphia 76ers. This could potentially be a playoff preview, but we still have the end of February, all of March, and early April to go. So let’s not jump to conclusions just yet. The matchup I’m most excited for when the Cavs and Sixers go at it will be Jarrett Allen (who should’ve been an All-Star) against Joel Embiid (who I think is the leading candidate for MVP).

The 76ers reportedly just added James Harden on Trade Deadline day in a deal for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry and others, along with draft capital, so that definitely changes what the matchup will look like. I think the Cavaliers and 76ers match up really well against each other. You’ve got Darius Garland going against James Harden in a battle of All-Stars, when it comes to the game matchup overall; they won’t guard one another, really.

Now, Harden has recently missed games with a hamstring injury, so we’ll have to see if he’s a go, however, it’ll make for quite the contest in three other ones to come, if he gets healthy.

From there, though, Joel Embiid squaring off with Jarrett Allen is a big-time matchup. Isaac Okoro going up against Harden for stretches, if he can go, and Tyrese Maxey should be another. Lastly, Matisse Thybulle against Caris LeVert should be interesting, and/or Thybulle against Garland. There are matchups all over the court that are intriguing, including who Cleveland matches up on Tobias Harris.

The last game on this pre-All-Star break road trip will take the Cavaliers down south to take on Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks. Darius Garland vs. Trae Young? Yes! Please! Thank you! It feels like Trae has already established himself as a superstar. Garland, meanwhile, was just named as an All-Star for the first time as well. Granted, we’ll have to see if he keeps on that bonafide star trajectory.

Games between Atlanta and Cleveland always seem to be really close games and high-pressure situations. Atlanta is for stretches utilizing small-ball and are very three-centric, while the Cavs have gone in the complete opposite direction and are less reliant on threes, although they’re getting there. This makes for a very compelling matchup.

We’ve got 27 games remaining in the regular season, and the Cavs are currently in the top four in the East, and the top six would qualify for the postseason, and avoid the play-in tourney.

On this road trip, the Cavaliers will play a division rival, then a possible first-round opponent in the playoffs, and then another possible first-round opponent. That’s a challenging way to close out their pre-All-Star break play.