Boston will have home court advantage and the Cavs have been terrible on the road lately. Since the trade, the Cavs are 1-7 on the road. Boston is an amazing 31-6 at home this season. Boston won both games it played at home versus Cleveland in the regular season.
Sidenote: Typically Cleveland is thought to be favored in games where they defend well against their opponent. Ironically, of the two games won by Boston neither team scored over 100 points, but in the two games won by Cleveland both teams scored over 100 points.
Conclusion: Though Boston is the clear favorite in this series, these two teams may be more evenly matched than most people think. This series could very well go to game 7, but since it will be played in Boston, the Celtics definitely have the edge.
Eastern Conference Championship - Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Detroit Pistons/Orlando Magic
On the slight chance that Cleveland slips past Boston, they will still have to contend with one of these two teams. Many people pick Detroit as the clear favorite, but it's way too early to forget about Orlando. Detroit could have a lot of trouble guarding Dwight Howard in the low post and coach Stan Van Gundy is quite familiar with the playoffs.
For
As I write this article, Cleveland is 1-1 so far with two games left to play in their regular season series with Detroit. The loss came on the second night of a back-to-back and included an injury to LeBron James that kept him out of the entire second half.
The Cavs are only 1-2 against Orlando so far with one game remaining in their regular season series. One of those losses (116-117) came early in the year while Varejao and Pavlovic were still holding out. The other loss was on the second night of a back-to-back. The only win was in Orlando on the second night of a back-to-back.
The Detroit-Orlando series could easily go to six or seven games, wearing heavily on both teams.
Against
The Pistons' only loss to Cleveland so far came on the second night of a back-to-back.
Orlando is 2-1 so far with one game remaining in their regular season series against the Cavs. One of those wins came on the Cavaliers' home floor.
Whoever the Cavs play will have home court advantage. As I mentioned before, the Cavs have been playing horribly on the road, especially since the trade.
If the Cavs beat Boston, they will almost assuredly need at least six games to do it.
Conclusion: With games still remaining against both these teams, the jury is still out on how they match up against each other. If the Cavaliers bring their best game every night, then anything is possible. Realistically, though, Cleveland would not be favored against either one of these teams.
Overall
For
The Cavs have been struggling with holdouts and injuries to key players throughout the season. They lost all six games that LeBron James missed due to injury. Assuming that the entire Cleveland roster is healthy and intact come playoff time, they could prove to be a much better team than their regular season record indicates.
So far, the Cavs have played 19 back-to-back games during this regular season. 16 of those had the second night on the road. The Cavs are 7-12 on the second night of back-to-backs so far this regular season. Since there are no back-to-back games in the playoffs, they could end up playing consistently better.
Against
Chances are high that the Cavs will have to get through both Boston and Detroit in order to claim the NBA title once again. Though the Cavs have had relatively good showings against both these teams, they will not have home court advantage and winning on the road has proved difficult for them lately.
They will have to perform even better than they did in last year's playoffs in order to defend their title as Eastern Conference Champions.
Still, don't let the overall W-L records fool you and don't count out the Cavaliers just yet. It's too early to say whether or not Cleveland can rumble with the other giants in the east. They've tweaked their roster in order to be better prepared for the playoffs and they may just surprise some people.
It wouldn't be the first time.
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