Playoff Picture: Cleveland Cavaliers
By Luke Duffy
Why They’ll Win It All
Again, it’s the obvious stuff here. LeBron is looking back to (near) his best. Kyrie Irving has taken the leap we knew he could. Offensively, he might be the most difficult guard in the entire league to contain. Yes he’s not a bulldozer like Russell Westbrook for example, but he can finish in so many different ways. He even finds ways to connect on his broken play, one-footed release off the top of the backboard plays that he is sometimes forced into having to do.
Kyrie Irving's shot chart from last night (via @nbastats) in his franchise record setting 57 point performance. pic.twitter.com/tqpyptakfw
— John Michael (@CavsJMike) March 13, 2015
He’s shooting nearly 41 percent from downtown as well. That’s way up from the 36 percent last season. Having better teammates will help that number as he gets easier looks, but they can’t put the ball in the basket for him as well. Kevin Love has still failed to impress mostly, but he’s hardly a lost cause. The playoffs would be a great time to show the world what he can do. On top of that, the trades this team made before the deadline looked to have paid off pretty well now.
Gone is Dion Waiters, and in his place came J.R. Smith, a player quite similar to the departed shooting guard. Unlike Waiters however, who refused to change his shooting ways even after moving on to Oklahoma, Smith has toned it down just a little and looks focused as well. His three-point shooting has stood firm as well (38 percent), a must if you want to play with LeBron. With Anderson Varejao lost to injury, getting a rim protector in Timofey Mozgov really helped turn their fortunes around as well. It’s a much more solid crew than the team that began the season.
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