If anyone has been following along with my coverage of the Cavs throughout the 2015-2016 season, there have been many times this year where I felt the team was underachieving, not playing up to its potential, so on and so forth.
The Cavs are now up 3-0 and have made clutch play after clutch play in the first three games. All three games were close in the first half, but in the 4th quarter of Game 1 and the second halves of Games 2 and 3, the Cavs have made the big plays when they needed to.
The Big Three has looked great. LeBron James is performing as amazingly as we have grown accustomed to. Kyrie Irving is stepping up time after time. Kevin Love has done all you can ask out of a third option. And J.R. Smith catches fire when you need him to.
Tristan Thompson continues to rebound like the 80 plus million dollars he is well worth.
Matthew Dellavedova is much more than just a backup point guard.
Iman Shumpert has made some big plays and continues to defend well. Veterans Richard Jefferson and Channing Frye are contributing in ways that this team sorely lacked in the 2015 playoffs off the bench.
It’s hard not to be optimistic about what this team can do.
About a month ago, fans who didn’t see many reasons for concern were telling me “Wait til Playoffs. The Cavs will flip the switch.”
I believe LeBron already flipped it in early-March. But of course now he’s at another level and can still turn it up even a few more notches as the stakes get higher.
What I am loving right now is that Kyrie, Love, J.R. and the entire team appear to have joined him in that “playoff mode, switch-flipping” mentality.
I was waiting for the rest of the bunch to catch up to LeBron in the last few weeks of the season, and through three games it appears they have done so.
The Cavs can sweep on Sunday and get some important rest. Meanwhile, the Golden State Warriors are having some setbacks with Steph Curry’s ankle and lost to the lowly Houston Rockets, which if nothing else will extend that series to at least 5 games, and take away some potential rest from the Warriors.
I will say that the Cavs’ defense has looked suspect at times in these three games against Detroit, but they clamp down when they need to in the second half and particularly in the 4th quarter.
This is something that I don’t believe they will be able to get away with as the competition gets stiffer.
The Atlanta Hawks lead the Boston Celtics 2-1, and although I believe Boston would give the Cavs a tougher series because of the matchup problems they create for the Cavs, I don’t have much reason to believe the Celtics would pull off an upset. And we saw what the Hawks were last year.
In the other side of the Eastern Conference bracket, it appears the Cavs will have to face either the Miami Heat or Toronto Raptors in the Conference Final.
That is where things could get interesting.
Miami has been playing some dominant basketball of late, and they have the superstar factor of Dwyane Wade, but I still feel like Toronto is the main threat to the Cavs in the East.
We need to see gradual improvement on the defensive end leading up to that Eastern Conference Final in order for the Cavs to get to the Finals.
And when the Finals come, assuming the Cavs make it, there will be practically zero room for error against either elite Western Conference team they face.
One thing I can say after three games now, the Cavs showed they are not phased by the challenge of going on the road to a hostile environment, and although it was a close game, the Cavs maintained control for basically the whole game.
My optimism in this team is growing, but there are still several factors to be wary of going forward that stand in the way of just getting to the Finals.
One way of looking at this Pistons series is that this is what the #1 seed is supposed to do to the #8 seed in the NBA Playoffs.
But Detroit is a relatively competitive #8 seed. So if the Cavs do accomplish the sweep on Sunday, it would speak more to the dominance of this Cavaliers team than if they swept a team like the Rockets or the Celtics from 2015.
If the Cavs don’t pull off the sweep, there’s no need to get bent out of shape, but the way this series feels right now, Cleveland has asserted their superiority.
Playoff mode is in full effect. And the amps have not even been cranked up to 10 yet.
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