Cleveland Cavaliers

I’ve never been a big fan of the NBA. Generally, I would much rather see a college game, which is pure basketball, or even a game between two good high school teams. Nevertheless, I can appreciate the extreme talent that NBA players have, and it can certainly be highly entertaining to watch them exercise their skills. But that’s what it is, entertainment. It’s not actually basketball as played by the rules. I don’t know of any other sport where the rules take a back seat to the entertainment value.

Having said that, I have watched more games this year than probably the last 10-15 years combined. I am, after all, a Cleveland fan, and when Cleveland teams do well, I pay attention. And no Cleveland team in my lifetime has accomplished what the Cavs are accomplishing this season.

So now that the regular season is over, how will the Cavs fare in the playoffs? I would say that if they do not win the NBA championship, I will be more disappointed than I was in 95 when the Indians lost the world series.

The 95 Indians were a special team. There were a number of players who had career seasons that year. They had the enthusiasm of skillful youngsters combined with the maturity of seasoned veterans who had been there before. These three things combined to give us arguably the most exciting Indians team in history. But they were not the best Indians team in history. The 95 season was a magical season in which so many things came together at all the right times. The walk off home runs became infectious, and the players started to believe they could do it whenever they needed to. Who could ever forget Dennis Eckersly’s big “Wow” as he walked off the mound, having just been the victim of one. But when it came right down to it, the Braves proved to be better in crunch time.

The Cavalier’s team that reached the NBA finals two years ago also played over their heads, very much like the Indians that year who came within a game of going to the World Series. They played with more talent than they actually had, and they really had to reach back for something extra in the Piston series to even make it to the finals. So although it was very disappointing that they didn’t win a single game in the finals, just getting there was a great accomplishment.

This year’s team is different. They truly are the class of the league. They match up well in every position and they have a very strong bench. But the biggest thing they have going for them is their cohesiveness. They truly seem to love and respect each other, and there doesn’t appear to be a bit of selfishness in any of them. Labron won’t allow it. They mesh well together and they all seem to want to learn from each other. There have been a number of times in recent weeks when I have seen other players, such as Mo Williams and Anderson Varajao, split seams with Labron James like passes that had me rubbing my eyes to see if I had seen correctly.

They have only one glaring weakness. Whenever Ben Wallace is not in there, they have no one to guard the paint and other teams are able to drive on them at will and get a lot of easy layups. They were able to overcome that when he was injured by using a swarming type of defense and staying hot offensively, but it could be a problem in the playoffs if he is not healthy.

It’s foolishness, of course, to predict that the Cavs will win the championship. There are too many variables in a postseason that stretches to more than 8 weeks. But right now, there is no team that can beat them in a seven game series unless there are major injuries or they somehow lose their focus.