Indiana Pacers: Best- and worst-case opponent for the first round

Cleveland Cavaliers

On paper at least, this is the opponent the Sixers should want to avoid at all costs. The reason comes in the shape of a 6’8″, 250-pound cyborg made out of granite who seems to be getting better as his 15th season winds down. Seriously…one day he’s going to be changing in the locker room and an infinity stone is going to fall out of his shorts.

If you look past arguably the second-greatest basketball player of all time though, you’ll see that other than LeBron James, the Cavs aren’t exactly the fearsome force they once were. They’re 15-9 since the All-Star break with the 10th-best net rating in the league. James has been putting up otherworldly stats and has played every game, but the team has still just been kind of “meh.” They haven’t had a double-digit win over an opponent that’s actually trying to win games in over a month.

Yes, we’ve been down this road before with Cleveland, but that was with a roster that remained mostly intact through its three-year Finals run. When certain members of this group go looking for that fabled playoff switch, they may not know where to find it.

Perhaps most importantly for the Pacers, they have multiple bodies they can throw at LeBron that can at least make his life difficult. Thaddeus Young would likely get the initial assignment, but Myles Turner, Victor Oladipo, Bojan Bogdanovic, Glenn Robinson III and everyone’s favorite ear blower Lance Stephenson will all take turns.

The history between the teams also helps. Indiana is 3-1 against Cleveland this season (although all the games took place before the trade deadline), and there’s enough institutional memory with the organization for them to know that they went toe-to-toe with these guys in the playoffs many times. It never resulted in a series victory, but the Pacers never looked outmatched, even in last year’s sweep that was much closer than the final result indicated.