[Pelton] All signs point to LeBron & Co. peaking at just the right time

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Believe it or not, the Cavaliers have actually faced tougher opposition en route to the Finals.

I believe it not.

Haha same here. A team by team comparison supports this, too.
Houston > Atlanta (at least playoffs Atlanta)

 I think Houston was a better team in the playoffs than Atlanta.

Unequivocally.

Atlanta beat the lowly Nets who stumbled into the playoffs and the Wall-less (for all intents and purposes) Wiz. Washington was missing their best player.

Houston beat the Clips.

Those two things should say it all about who was a better playoff team, nevermind the Korver injury.

Yeah, the Hawks stunk against Cleveland even before the Korver injury.

[Endless Paradise]

As for the defensive stats, it's easy to look like you've transformed into an elite defensive squad in the playoffs when none of the opponents you've faced in the first three rounds was a particularly good offensive team.

This exact point is covered in the full article. Cleveland's still defending considerably better than most models and metrics would predict, even accounting for their opponents' offenses (and subsequent injuries suffered by said opponents in the playoffs).

[PhoSita]

As for the defensive stats, it's easy to look like you've transformed into an elite defensive squad in the playoffs when none of the opponents you've faced in the first three rounds was a particularly good offensive team.

This exact point is covered in the full article. Cleveland's still defending considerably better than most models and metrics would predict, even accounting for their opponents' offenses (and subsequent injuries suffered by said opponents in the playoffs).

I believe Cleveland has improved defensively, for sure.  Adding Shumpert and Moz and swapping Kevin Love's minutes for Tristan Thompson have done a lot for them on that end.

That said, I just don't buy that they're suddenly an elite defensive team just because they've dominated a pathetic procession of opponents over the last month and a half.


Golden State was the best defensive team in a very competitive Western Conference over the entire 82 game regular season, and have maintained that high level of defensive play in the playoffs.  They've also got the two best defensive players in the series.  I put a lot more stock in that kind of evidence.

[Endless Paradise]

That said, I just don't buy that they're suddenly an elite defensive team just because they've dominated a pathetic procession of opponents over the last month and a half.

I don't get this argument. Cleveland's most recent performance in the playoffs should be extremely relevant to any projections to how they'll fare in the Finals. A month and a half and three series' worth of play is a great sample size for the playoffs given that there's only a single round and up to seven games remaining. Again, they're not just "dominating a pathetic procession of opponents"; they're dominating them even more so than anyone could've predicted. There's a lot to suggest - both from the eye test and data - that Cleveland's improvement on defense is due to actual improvement and not just from facing weak competition.

[crimson_stallion]

I don't think anyone can convince me that CLE has endured a more difficult path in these playoffs.

NOLA > BOS
MEM > CHI
ATL > HOU (I guess)

Especially since almost every team Cleveland has gone up against has faced a major setback at some point.

Boston were just Boston (they barely scraped in to the playoffs), Chicago had a number of issues (Gasol playing hurt, Rose just returned from major injury, Noah a shadow of his former self), Atlanta lost Korver for the series and Horford for a whole game (after a ridiculous and completely unjustifiable ejection), and now for Golden Stats Klay Thompson has just suffered a concussion and is game-by-game.

I know Cleveland has suffered some setbacks of their own, but lets not pretend they haven't had a little convenient help along the way.

Funnily enough, I actually feel that losing Love may have helped them.  Their defense has been much improved in the last few rounds, and I wouldn't be surprised if that has a lot to do with Love not being on the court.

[Endless Paradise]

but lets not pretend they haven't had little convenient help along the way.

Absolutely no one has said otherwise. What I have said, however, is that people are pretending that the Warriors haven't had comparable "convenient help along the way," as well.

[wayupnorth]

"Believe it or not, the Cavaliers have actually faced tougher opposition en route to the Finals. "

And this guy gets paid to write about sports?

 

Hell, both the Griz and the Clips are tougher than anyone the Cavs played.

[GratefulCs]

Who's lebron?

...



Oh, you mean that guy who tries to change his personality and team every couple of years?

[GratefulCs]

Believe it or not, the Cavaliers have actually faced tougher opposition en route to the Finals.

Ah yes, a very interesting argument ... hmm.. really some compelling points here .....




Sorry, I believe it not.

cavs fans on realgm SWORE that they faced tougher competition



Despite the fact that curry had to face all the other players from the first team all NBA


Warriors faced the pelicans (i think they were better than us at the end there) the grizz (one of the stronger teams in the west) and the rockets (great team, but not my favorites to win the west)

Cavs faced us (NO stars whatsoever) bulls (good team, but come on. Look at the offense) and the hawks (struggled with the mighty brooklyn NOTS)


Warriors were helped out with some injuries but so were the cavs. The ONLY way you could make a case for the cavs having harder competition is addressing their own injury issues

[crimson_stallion]

but lets not pretend they haven't had little convenient help along the way.

Absolutely no one has said otherwise. What I have said, however, is that people are pretending that the Warriors haven't had comparable "convenient help along the way," as well.

A fair point, but then the Warriors are also in the West, where even the 8th seed Pelicans had a .550 win record.  They faced teams who had regular season records of .550 .670 and .680 - the latter of those two (Memphis and Houston) had the 3rd and 5th best records in the entire league and both had better records than Cleveland.

Atlanta is the only team Cleveland played that had a regular season record above 0.600

I think it's pretty obvious how much easier Cleveland's run was than Golden State's run...

[jpotter33]

That said, I just don't buy that they're suddenly an elite defensive team just because they've dominated a pathetic procession of opponents over the last month and a half.

I don't get this argument. Cleveland's most recent performance in the playoffs should be extremely relevant to any projections to how they'll fare in the Finals. A month and a half and three series' worth of play is a great sample size for the playoffs given that there's only a single round and up to seven games remaining. Again, they're not just "dominating a pathetic procession of opponents"; they're dominating them even more so than anyone could've predicted. There's a lot to suggest - both from the eye test and data - that Cleveland's improvement on defense is due to actual improvement and not just from facing weak competition.

How much of that dominance though is due to the underwhelming offensive play of their opponents? Perhaps it's not that the Cavs are greatly exceeding their expectations, it's that their opponents are playing even worse offense than they were expected to. Boston, Chicago, and Atlanta all didn't put up nearly the fight that many thought they would, so perhaps the opponents' underwhelming offensive performance is skewing the perception more than the overwhelming performance of the Cavs' defense.

[alldaboston]

That said, I just don't buy that they're suddenly an elite defensive team just because they've dominated a pathetic procession of opponents over the last month and a half.

I don't get this argument. Cleveland's most recent performance in the playoffs should be extremely relevant to any projections to how they'll fare in the Finals. A month and a half and three series' worth of play is a great sample size for the playoffs given that there's only a single round and up to seven games remaining. Again, they're not just "dominating a pathetic procession of opponents"; they're dominating them even more so than anyone could've predicted. There's a lot to suggest - both from the eye test and data - that Cleveland's improvement on defense is due to actual improvement and not just from facing weak competition.

They sure didn't dominate us more than I expected.

[D Dub]

As for the defensive stats, it's easy to look like you've transformed into an elite defensive squad in the playoffs when none of the opponents you've faced in the first three rounds was a particularly good offensive team.

This exact point is covered in the full article. Cleveland's still defending considerably better than most models and metrics would predict, even accounting for their opponents' offenses (and subsequent injuries suffered by said opponents in the playoffs).

Are they taking into account the biased officiating that occurs whenever James is in the game?

When your best player gets to handcheck, reach, and is never EVER in any kind of foul trouble that would give him pause to do so ---- your defense is going to look pretty good.  Likely even better than the statistics would otherwise have indicated. 

[PhoSita]

Cleveland's most recent performance in the playoffs should be extremely relevant to any projections to how they'll fare in the Finals. A month and a half and three series' worth of play is a great sample size for the playoffs given that there's only a single round and up to seven games remaining.

The playoffs, though, are so matchup dependent.  The Cavs have looked good over three series, but they also have not been seriously challenged in any of their matchups to this point.

You're right to point out that the Warriors haven't exactly faced the kind of gauntlet that, say, the 2013 Spurs faced on their way to the Finals. 

Still, to me the playoffs is all about the best players on each team in each series going head to head, and the Cavs simply haven't faced a single team that has had a single guy who could hope to go toe-to-toe with LeBron over the course of a seven game series, in the way that Paul Pierce, Dwight Howard, Dirk Nowitzki, Rajon Rondo, and Kawhi Leonard have in the past.  To me, that means they are untested, despite being in the Finals.

[Endless Paradise]

but lets not pretend they haven't had little convenient help along the way.

Absolutely no one has said otherwise. What I have said, however, is that people are pretending that the Warriors haven't had comparable "convenient help along the way," as well.

A fair point, but then the Warriors are also in the West, where even the 8th seed Pelicans had a .550 win record.  They faced teams who had regular season records of .550 .670 and .680 - the latter of those two (Memphis and Houston) had the 3rd and 5th best records in the entire league and both had better records than Cleveland.

Atlanta is the only team Cleveland played that had a regular season record above 0.600

I think it's pretty obvious how much easier Cleveland's run was than Golden State's run...

Regular season record is a flawed way to judge the quality of their opponents by the time the postseason rolled around. If you believe in the idea of "peaking at the right time," both Chicago and Boston were playing better than New Orleans and Memphis going into the playoffs by both regular season record post-ASB and point differential post-ASB.

How much of that dominance though is due to the underwhelming offensive play of their opponents? Perhaps it's not that the Cavs are greatly exceeding their expectations, it's that their opponents are playing even worse offense than they were expected to. Boston, Chicago, and Atlanta all didn't put up nearly the fight that many thought they would, so perhaps the opponents' underwhelming offensive performance is skewing the perception more than the overwhelming performance of the Cavs' defense.

Fair point, but there's a common trend with all three teams: poor three-point shooting. Cleveland's got a postseason-low opponent 3PT% of 28.1. Couple that with the fact that Cleveland's opponents are even shooting worse on wide-open 3s and it seems that these underwhelming offensive performances are largely due to Cleveland preventing them from getting the kinds of three-point looks they want.