Cavs prepared for West winner?
The Cleveland Cavaliers are a very good basketball team. After making it to the NBA Finals two years in a row, there is not another thing to call Cleveland.
However, are the Cavaliers ready for the challenge that is going to be presented by the Golden State Warriors or Oklahoma City Thunder come Thursday night in Game 1? If history tells us anything, the answer is probably not.
The Cavaliers have three of the best players in the game today with forwards LeBron James and Kevin Love, and point guard Kyrie Irving. The rest of the roster is dotted with talented players as well including Tristan Thompson, Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith.
Yet for all of their talents and accomplishments, the Cavaliers are not of the quality that the Western Conference can provide. Outside of the Miami Heat from 2011-14, the Eastern Conference has been nothing less than a dumpster fire since the turn of the century. It has been the Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks and Warriors dominating the sport.
The Finals have been mostly an exercise in futility for the East, getting blown out more often than not. In fact, the only titles won by the East since the 2000 season were the 2004 Detroit Pistons, and the 2012 and 2013 Heat. In other words, teams coming out of the West have been all but guaranteed a nice parade through their respective downtowns at the end of the campaign.
Cleveland won 57 games this season and only lost twice in the postseason, but who have the Cavaliers had to go against? The Pistons and Atlanta Hawks would struggle to make the playoffs in the West, with Atlanta likely ranking as perhaps the sixth or seventh-best team in the West, at its pinnacle.
Should the Warriors get out of the West, they will have gotten through a Thunder team with Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant. In the second round, Golden State beat the Portland Trail Blazers, who would be the third-best team in the East at the bare minimum with Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum leading the charge.
For the sake of entertainment, hopefully Cleveland can play up to the challenge and force the Warriors or Thunder to the brink – and even over it. Nothing would be more fun than watching the Cavaliers finally take the proverbial monkey off the back of Cleveland, which has not seen a major sports championship since 1964 when the NFL’s Cleveland Browns beat he Baltimore Colts.
Unfortunately, history tells us that won’t be the case. pay close attention to Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals, because whoever wins likely raises the Larry O’Brien Trophy some time next week.
