Checklist for Cleveland Cavaliers During Season's Home Stretch

For nearly six weeks, the Cleveland Cavaliers have been the NBA's best team.

It's their next six weeks, however, that will truly define them.

Heading into the season's final stretch run, the Cavs are clicking on what appears to be all cylinders. Over the past 18 games, Cleveland leads the association in wins (16), win percentage (88.9), point differential (plus-12.5) and offensive rating (113.3), via NBA.com.

A healthy LeBron James is now receiving even more rest thanks to some lopsided wins. Kyrie Irving has become an ultra-efficient second option, and Kevin Love is contributing across the board. Rookie head coach David Blatt is adjusting to the league nicely, and the team's body language looks completely different following a rocky first few months.

Despite their recent success, there are some areas the Cavaliers need to clean up before playoff time and some in which they just need to keep rolling along.

Finalize the Rotation

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Blatt hasn't had the luxury of stabilizing a rotation nearly all season due to key players missing games, inconsistent performances and trades.

Although he's finally gotten closer, a nagging hip injury to forward Shawn Marion has forced Blatt to only rotate eight guys. While many NBA teams keep a tight playoff rotation of around this number, it can wear players thin during the regular season.

The Cavaliers didn't make any moves at the trade deadline but still benefited from it. Veteran center Kendrick Perkins announced he was signing with Cleveland following a buyout with the Utah Jazz. This was preceded by a deal that sent him to Utah from the Oklahoma City Thunder for Enes Kanter.

Blatt will have to find minutes for Perkins, who was averaging 19.2 a game for the Thunder this season. With Love, Timofey Mozgov and Tristan Thompson all receiving 27 or more ticks a night, some adjustments will have to be made.

Perkins is by no means a star player, but his teams have always valued his toughness and inside presence. Among all players facing four or more shot attempts at the rim, Perkins has been the eighth-best defender, allowing just 45.3 percent shooting, via NBA.com.

In addition to starters James, Love, Irving, Mozgov and J.R. Smith, Blatt must find time for Iman Shumpert, Matthew Dellavedova, Thompson, Marion and now Perkins off the bench.

Giving all 10 opportunities now will help him find his best lineups when postseason play begins.

Kevin Love's Shot Selection

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Love has gotten a bad rap this season.

Not many guys around the league (five, to be exact) are averaging better than 17 points and 10 rebounds a game. None, besides Love, are serving as their team's third option, either.

All season, Love has said the right things, sacrificed for the team and taken a back seat to James and Irving.

When it comes to shot selection, he needs to get a little greedy.

The Cavaliers are still spacing Love out far too often on offense. His outside shooting should be considered a luxury, not a primary weapon.

Love's 42.9 percent shooting is his lowest career mark, not counting an injury-shortened 2012-13 season. This number can be a bit misleading, however. Love's connecting on a solid 48.1 percent of his two-point shots, actually above his career mark of 47.9 percent.

The problem? He drifts out to the arc far too often. Love is connecting on just 34.1 percent of his three-pointers despite attempting a career-high 37.6 percent of his total shots from deep.

This is a major reason Love hasn't appeared totally comfortable in the offense, as he told Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group back in October: "My entire life I've played the game from inside-out. So the more touches I can get inside to get myself going, the better. I'm not accustomed to starting out a game shooting a three, so it's just something that I see."

This needs to be a group effort between Love, his teammates and Blatt to shift his offensive game inside.

Continue to Limit Opponent's Shooting

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Opponent's field-goal percentage is a huge indicator of a team's defensive aptitude.

It's the only stat that the Cavaliers have posted in their locker room, ranking all 30 teams and listing their percentages.

For much of the season, Cleveland has wallowed near the bottom.

On Jan. 14, the Cavs were allowing opposing teams to convert 47.1 percent of their shots. Only the Minnesota Timberwolves, who are more concerned with draft picks than wins, were ranked worse. This was inexcusable from a team with championship aspirations.

Then came the trades for Shumpert, Smith and Mozgov.

All have been, for lack of a better word, outstanding. Shumpert is perhaps the best one-on-one defender on the team, while Mozgov has been the rim protector (1.6 blocks) the Cavs desperately needed.

Since Jan. 15, Cleveland has posted an impressive 42.0 percent opponent shooting success mark, fifth-best in the league over that span, via NBA.com. The Golden State Warriors have remained the best all season at 42.4 percent.

The Cavaliers' defensive rotations, effort and intensity have all been excellent. With Mozgov and Shumpert, they finally have the personnel in place as well.

Rest for James and Irving

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James and Irving aren't just near the top of the Eastern Conference in scoring, they represent some of the highest-used players in the league as well.

Irving (37.4) and James (36.2) are No. 2 and No. 3 in the NBA in minutes played per game this season. Only Jimmy Butler of the Chicago Bulls has been used more.

As Terry Pluto of The Plain Dealer notes, keeping both fresh for a playoff run is of the utmost importance:

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So the challenge for Blatt will be how to make sure that James and Irving don't wear down. The Cavs don't acknowledge it, but isn't it possible that James playing heavy minutes early in the season led to his back and leg problems? He was averaging 37.8 minutes before he missed two weeks to rest his body. Since then, he's slightly under 36 minutes per game.

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Besides their use in the regular season, there are other factors at play here as well.

Irving, although 22, spent his summer playing for the U.S. team during the FIBA basketball tournament. He didn't receive much time to rest in the offseason and has a history of various injuries.

James is in his 30s now and coming off four straight trips to the NBA Finals. In those four trips, James played a total of 87 games, or longer than an entire regular season. Both players took part in the NBA All-Star Game during the break, the only Cavaliers to do so.

Getting off to big leads and letting starters rest for part or all of a fourth quarter is nice, but Blatt needs to find a better way of limiting his stars even in close-knit games.

Trusting the Process

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When the Cavaliers began the season 5-7, there wasn't a whole lot of panic.

After all, this was a group with only five returning members. Emphasis was put on learning Blatt's system while adjusting to one another. Chemistry, and wins, would come later.

When Cleveland was 19-20, however, the process didn't appear to be working.

Any excuses involving time or chemistry were falling on deaf ears. This was a team with too much talent, too many stars not to be winning. Forget the journey, everyone was eager for the destination.

When teams worry about the final result instead of all the steps it takes to get there, play suffers.

Now after winning 16 of their previous 18 games, the Cavs can afford to relax a little bit. Not on the court, but rather mentally and emotionally. Guys don't have to worry about each individual game result and can instead just focus on their play.

“Right now, you can ask every guy to a man, we’re not focused on the result,” forward James Jones told ESPN.com's Dave McMenamin following a Feb. 22 win over the New York Knicks. “We’re focused on the process. We’re going into every game saying that if we execute our defense, if we limit our turnovers, if we execute the game plan that Coach [Blatt] puts in front of us at a high clip, we’ll play good basketball."

Thanks to trusting the system put in place and letting guys do what they do best, the Cavaliers have been playing very good basketball.

They'll need to keep on this same path during the stretch run and beyond.

Greg Swartz has covered the Cleveland Cavaliers for Bleacher Report since 2010.

All stats provided by Basketball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.