The Cleveland Cavaliers have impressed nearly everyone with their strong start to the season.
They started 15-0, one of the best starts in the history of the NBA, before a handful of cold shooting nights contributed to their first losses of the season. Even so, after 20 games, a quarter of the season, they are 17-3, the mark of a team worth taking seriously as a title contender.
The question becomes, however, just how seriously we should take them. Are the Cavaliers the title favorites now? Or are they merely now a team to discuss as a possibility to reach the NBA Finals, even if other teams have a stronger shot to hoist the trophy?
The only true answer to that question will come in the playoffs; a strong regular season, even a start as strong as Cleveland's, cannot prove a team's playoff mettle. Against the elite teams of the league, when coaches scheme specifically to take away your strengths and relentlessly attack any weaknesses, good and even great regular season teams wilt away all of the time. Will Cleveland do the same?
That answer will be months in coming, but their start thus far suggests they are at least better equipped than last season to take on that challenge. Last year, of course, they lost in five games to the Boston Celtics -- albeit without Jarrett Allen or Donovan Mitchell for most of the series.
Now the Cavaliers have a new coach, an improved bench and increased synergy between their stars. Evan Mobley has taken a major step forward. Mitchell, Garland and Allen are all healthy.
Yet as the Cavaliers take on the Boston Celtics at home in Rocket Mortgage Field House on Sunday, with first place in the Eastern Conference on the line, it's clear that there remains a gulf between the Cavaliers and the best team in the East, the defending champions, the Boston Celtics. Let's break down three key ways the Celtics still hold the advantage.
No. 1: The Celtics win the math game
The Cleveland Cavaliers can attribute much of their hot start to their strong shooting, as they currently lead the league in hitting 40.2 percent of their 3-pointers as a team. In addition to Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland remaining strong shooters, bench players like Ty Jerome and Caris LeVert are having career years to buoy Cleveland's offensive attack.
Despite this advantage in accuracy, however, the Cavaliers lag behind the Boston Celtics in points from the 3-point line. The reason for this, of course, is 3-point volume.
Cleveland is taking just 37.7 3-pointer per game this season, which ranks 12th in the league. Inexplicably, teams like the Orlando Magic, San Antonio Spurs and Phoenix Suns -- all teams that have eschewed 3-point volume in recent seasons -- rank above the Cavs. And it's not simply a matter of pace, either; Cleveland ranks 12th in 3-point attempts per 100 possessions, and drop even further to 15th when you look at 3-point attempt rate, or the percentage of their total shots coming from 3-point range.
The Celtics, on the other hand, rank first in all of these categories, and it's not even close. A whopping 56.2 percent of their shots come from deep, leading to 50.7 3-point attempts per game; the Charlotte Hornets in second (44.7 attempts) are as close to the Cavs in 12th as they are to the Celtics in first.
That means that the Cavaliers, despite being the most accurate team in the league, rank just 6th in 3-pointers per game at 15.2. The Celtics are first at 19.2. That math advantage puts a lot of stress on the Cavs to outscore a team like the Celtics from 2-point range, an area where it's harder to control your own shot volume as defenses can dictate their schemes accordingly.
No. 2: The Celtics are versatile at every position
Head coach Kenny Atkinson deserves credit for how he has taken largely the same roster as the Cavaliers had last season (with a healthy Ty Jerome and adding rookie Jaylon Tyson, who has played a minor rotation role) and turned it into an offensive juggernaut and the team with the best record in the NBA.
Yet he is also dealing with players who largely excel at one end of the court or another. Evan Mobley is thriving as an offensive hub and the team's best "two-way" player, but he doesn't stretch the floor in any meaningful way. Jarrett Allen doesn't shoot at all. That's two star-level players who are not going to space the court out from 3-point range.
At the other end of the court, Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell are a pair of small guards who at times try hard on defense but are not difference-markers on that end. Ty Jerome, similarly, gambles for steals but is easily taken advantage of on that end. Georges Niang is a hard-working traffic cone on defense.
With guys like Dean Wade and Caris LeVert gluing lineups together, Atkinson is trying to find the right balance of defenders and floor-spacers to excel at both ends of the court. It's largely working, of course; the Cavaliers are 17-3 with a +9.8 net rating.
The Celtics, however, don't have to make the same difficult decisions. If they want to play a lineup with three of their guards, or two of their bigs, that's a recipe for success, because every player in their standard rotation can both shoot at a high level and defend multiple positions.
Their guards, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White, are perennial All-Defense candidates and have the strength to switch onto larger players. Conversely, Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis are both comfortable taking and making high volumes of 3-pointers. Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser come in off the bench and bomb away without providing too soft of a spot in the defense.
That unlocks all manner of lineup combinations for head coach Joe Mazzulla, and it makes it nearly impossible to defend or score on the Celtics. They can switch, they can blitz, they can drop - any defensive scheme is available to them. On offense, all five starters can operate in the post or on the perimeter; how is a team supposed to beat that?
The Cavaliers just don't have that level of versatility across its rotation.
No. 3: The Celtics have a superstar
Donovan Mitchell is an extremely talented player who is capable of magnificent offensive explosions. He is without a doubt a Top-25 player in the NBA, and if you had him as high as 12-15 you would have a strong case to make.
Jayson Tatum, however, is without a doubt a Top-10 player in the NBA, and he probably deserves to be in the Top 5. He ranks fifth in the league in points per game at 28.7 despite playing on a team with exceptional complementary scoring. He is third in 3-point field goals made, fourth in win shares, and fourth in Value over Replacement Player (VORP).
Unlike many of his superstar fellows, however, Tatum is also an exceptional defender. He is a stout interior defender and udnerrated shot-blocker who is long on the perimeter and rotates as crisply as you would expect for someone raised under Brad Stevens and Ime Udoka.
To win championships you need a no-doubt Top-10 player, and the current Cavaliers don't have that player. Perhaps Donovan Mitchell takes a step forward. Perhaps Evan Mobley continues to improve. Perhaps the four stars together all rise up into the Top-35 range and overwhelm opponents out of sheer depth of talent.
Most likely, however, when the chips are down, the fact that the Celtics have a math equation every game, are versatile across every position and have a true superstar player means they are still significant favorites over the Cleveland Cavaliers when it comes to winning the Eastern Conference.