The Cleveland Cavaliers should reach the NBA Finals.
That's certainly far from a sure thing; the Cavaliers are not even the betting favorite to win the Eastern Conference. In fact, depending on where you look, they may even be third, behind not only the title-favorite Boston Celtics but the offensively powerful New York Knicks as well.
Yet the Cavs have been the best team in the East, hands down, and have the league's best record through 35 games at a staggering 31-4. Not since the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors has a team started a season so well, and in fact, only seven other times has a team won 31 of its first 35 games.
We went into further detail on the teams that accomplished this feat earlier this week, but here are the cliffnotes: Only two teams have failed to reach the NBA Finals after such a start, and each lost in their Conference Finals to the team that ultimately won the championship. Four of the seven times that team has gone on to win it all.
That's a lot of history suggesting that this start for the Cavaliers is for real. They not only have this strong start in the standings, but they have backed it up with a strong net rating, blowing teams out on a consistent basis. They have won ten-straight games by at least ten points, which ties the NBA record. There is nothing else Cleveland can do between now and the playoffs to prove they should be taken seriously as a contender.
Nothing, that is, except defeat the juggernaut they are set to face on Wednesday night.
The Cavaliers and Thunder are on a collision course
For as impressive as the Cavaliers have been, they are just one game up on the Oklahoma City Thunder. Cleveland has had a dominant offense and a really good defense, and the Thunder are the opposite; they have the league's best defense, perhaps one of the very best defenses of all time, and a really good offense led by MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Where the Cavaliers are balanced, with a three-headed offensive attack and plenty of efficient support players, the Thunder rely on SGA to drive their offense, with Jalen Williams as a steady No. 2 and everyone else further down the totem pole. They make up for that with suffocating defense, causing turnovers and rushed shots and ripping the hearts out of opposing teams.
They have faced the other two East contenders in the past week and smothered both en route to win. With their NBA Cup Final loss not counting in the standings, they are officially 30-5 and on a 15-game winning streak. Their net rating of +12.1 is just a hair better than the Cavaliers' 11.8, and when they have played a game with a true center available (Chet Holmgren or Isaiah Hartenstein) they are 27-2.
The Cavaliers face quite the test when the Thunder come to town on Wednesday night, and will again next week when they travel to Oklahoma City. Yet that may not be the end of their matchup this year, as the two teams appear to be on a collision course for an NBA Finals rematch.
Only 22 teams in NBA history have won at least 30 of their first 35 games as both the Cavaliers and Thunder have. 13 of those teams have made it to the NBA Finals, with 12 of them winning it all. That's an extremely strong track record and suggests that when you play this well for this long to start a season, a title is almost certainly in reach.
It's far from a sure thing, but there is no obvious challenger to the Thunder in the West, so they have to be an overwhelming favorite at this point to win the Western Conference and reach the NBA Finals -- except, of course, for the fact that they haven't done that before. Neither has this version of the Cavaliers. Both teams look like the best in the league, but they have to prove they can carry this success over into the playoffs.
If they can, both teams should be favored to meet one another in the NBA Finals to prove who is the true champion of the 2024-25 NBA season.