Who Is The Cleveland Cavaliers’ Biggest Playoff Challenge?

The Eastern Conference has been dominated by a LeBron James-led team for some time now, but who will give them their greatest challenge yet in the conference finals?

For the past five seasons, the Eastern Conference in the NBA has been dominated by LeBron James. Before that time, his teams were always looked at as being the biggest threat simply because of his presence and greatness he brings. This season is no different.

It is projected that his Cleveland Cavaliers with mosey right into the Finals and potentially await a rematch of last season’s meeting with the Golden State Warriors. However, there is one team that could present quite the obstacle for The King and ironically, it’s his old team the Miami Heat.

The Eastern Conference playoffs have been a little confusing so far. With Toronto finishing in second place and playing at a high level all season, it was easy to guess from afar that they would be the team to meet the Cavaliers in the conference finals.

However, the Raptors cannot be trusted in the playoffs as of yet with their recent history of being eliminated in the first round the past two seasons as the higher seed. The series between Toronto and Indiana is tied 2-2.

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Boston was a team that was favored to give the Cavaliers a run for their money because of how scrappy they can be, along with their elite perimeter defenders, but Atlanta has used its two big men in Al Horford and Paul Millsap to take a 2-1 series lead.

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The Heat are currently in a battle with the Charlotte Hornets. Before the series, the predictions were all over the place. The people who sided with Charlotte did so because of their head coach, Steve Clifford, and the job he has done all season.

Another reason was that point guard Kemba Walker has been on a tear this year–so good that his name was in the conversation for Most Improved Player.

But when you look at the Heat, they have the perfect combination of players. They have veterans like Dwyane Wade, Udonis Haslem, Joe Johnson and Luol Deng who all have significant playoff and/or Finals experience. Then you have players Goran Dragic and Hassan Whiteside who are entering their prime years and can impact a game tremendously.

Last but not least, they have their young guns who don’t seem to be afraid of the playoff lights in Justise Winslow and Josh Richardson.

Among those players there is always a threat of slashing and finishing at the basket, making shots from the outside and the ability to push and finish in transition.

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It isn’t a complete surprise, but not many people could have guessed that Deng would be playing as well as he his. So far he is leading the Heat in scoring at 22 points per game and in field goal percentage at 63.9 percent. If he can continue this level of play, it makes the Heat extremely difficult to guard considering all the other scoring options that are available to them.

Defensively, they’ve allowed 106 points per game, which isn’t ideal, but the good thing is that Whiteside is starting to show discipline by not jumping for every shot fake that comes his way. He has dominated throughout the Heat’s three playoff games averaging 17 points, 14 rebounds and three blocks per game.

If they advance to the conference finals and meet the Cavaliers, they could match up pretty well, with Dragic on Kyrie Irving, Wade on J.R. Smith, Johnson on LeBron James, Deng on Kevin Love, and Whiteside on Tristan Thompson.

If the Cavaliers decide to go smaller with Love at the 5, the Heat have the lineups to match that as well with options of putting Johnson or Deng at the 5 and throwing Winslow in with that group.

Last but not least, the tension that will be on James as he will return to Miami in a playoff environment will be legendary and who knows, maybe enough to rattle him and allow the Heat to defend their home court.

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One thing is certain, a Cavaliers-Heat playoff matchup would be must-see TV and for the Cavaliers’ sake, not the team that they would want to see in order to get another chance of winning the Finals.