Cavaliers Team to Beat in the East

This season the Atlanta Hawks have been one of the feel good stories all year. The Hawks had a 19-game winning streak and have clinched the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. However despite the team’s success, there is another team that is threatening to walk away with the Eastern Conference championship and that team is the Cleveland Cavaliers.

During the long 82-game regular season that has just 4 games left, the Cavs have looked and have been beatable. Remember, Atlanta was 3-1 this season versus Cleveland. However, the Cavaliers have LeBron James with far more playoff experience than the Hawks.

The season did not start that well for Cleveland with LeBron trying to team up with the likes of Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving. The team was out of sorts at times early on.

James at times seems sluggish and even disinterested which made the Cavs struggle.

However, after James sat for two weeks in January to rest his body, the Cavaliers have emerged as a true NBA title contender. The same contenders, a number of teams were worried they would be when the season started.

After resting in January, James joined his revamped roster that included newcomers Timofey Mozgov, J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert. Since that time, Cleveland has won 31 of its 38 games with the offense scoring at 103.4 points a game, which is seventh in the NBA. However, the team’s defense has proven it can make stops and shut down teams.

Although Cleveland looks like it can steamroll its opponents this postseason, the veteran James remains cautious saying the team is a contender for the championship but the team is not quite there yet. The talent is there, but more still needs to be done, added LeBron.

James knows the lack of experience the team has in the postseason. While James Jones, Shawn Marion and Mike Miller all have NBA titles, LeBron is the only titleholder that has played major minutes for the Cavaliers. Smith has the next most experience in the postseason with 51 games, Shumpert has 13 and Mozgov just 7.

Three other players who contribute in a very big way to Cleveland’s success – Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson – all have never played in a postseason game.

David Blatt the head coach for Cleveland has never reached the postseason, as this is his first season as an NBA coach.

The positive news for Cleveland is that their matchup in the first round will be Miami, Brooklyn or Boston and should not test them that much.

However, after that it things will change with opponents such as the Chicago Bulls next in line most likely.

Regardless, the way Cleveland is now playing they are one of the teams to beat and should go deep into the postseason.