The Cleveland Cavaliers should be up in the first-round series against the Toronto Raptors. Even if this isn't a sweep, there's no reason Kenny Atkinson's team should've struggled this much, especially with Brandon Ingram shooting the ball so poorly and Immanuel Quickley out with an injury.
Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen have gone MIA again, and James Harden is being careless with the ball. Even Donovan Mitchell has taken a step back after dominating in the first two games of the series.
However, it's not the losing that is so infuriating, but the way they're losing. Even Harden knows they shouldn't have had such a tough time against this team, and his latest revelation should only be more frustrating.
The Cavaliers are their own worst enemy in the playoffs
“If they were doing something we didn’t understand or couldn’t control, then it’d be a different conversation. But I think everything we’re doing is self-inflicted,” Harden admitted to the media (h/t Ashly Holder).
That tells the whole story. It's not that the Raptors are doing something the Cavs can't decipher or that they're the better team. It's not even that Scottie Barnes has been a major force on both ends of the floor; he's been great, but he's just one player.
Instead, it's the sum of a bunch of self-inflicted wounds -- death by a thousand paper cuts. Harden hasn't taken good care of the ball, Mitchell has been rattled by contact, Mobley has been hot and cold, and Allen has been, well, classic playoff Allen. To add insult to injury, Dennis Schroder has been borderline unplayable, and Keon Ellis has struggled to be as impactful against bigger players.
On paper, this team should have everything they need to get over the hump. They have a strong case to be either the most or the second-most stacked team in the Eastern Conference, including a future first-ballot Hall of Famer.
The Raptors obivously deserve credit for protecting their homecourt, showing some teeth, and not allowing the higher seed to just manhandle them and roll them over in an easy four-game sweep. That's the type of pride the fans have been asking the Cavs to show for years now.
This team has earned a reputation of being soft, especially in the postseason, and it looks like even they have started to believe that. They look defeated when things don't go their way in the first couple of minutes, and they need to win the mental game before they can aspire to win the actual basketball one.
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