Cleveland Cavaliers: There’s No Time To Panic For LeBron James, Cavs
Now is not the time to panic, despite up and down results over the last few weeks, for LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers
There are plenty of things that the Cleveland Cavaliers must do ahead of the start of the playoffs – improving their overall intensity, body language and defense are at the forefront – panicking isn’t one of those things, however.
Not yet.
Despite LeBron James‘ subtweets and flat out strange behavior over the last few weeks and the overall team’s supposed dysfunction, let’s not forget that the Cleveland Cavaliers are still leading the Eastern Conference in the standings.
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Even if they continue this trend over the last two and a half weeks remaining in the regular season, the Cavs will still likely control their own destiny, with homecourt advantage throughout the first three rounds of the postseason.
This is not a time for the Cavs to panic, even after its loss to the Brooklyn Nets.
If nothing else, last season could be the perfect sign of just that. If you remember, the Cavs didn’t exactly hit their stride as a team until the Eastern Conference Finals against the Atlanta Hawks. Trying to adjust on the fly, due to the loss of Kevin Love and the up and down play on behalf of Kyrie Irving (because of injury), it wasn’t until the series against the Hawks that Cleveland found its identity.
And that was ugly-ing up the game in order to allow LeBron James to takeover in spurts, along with the occasional three-pointer from one of his supporters. That took them all the way to Game 6 in the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors.
With a fully assembled team, with Love and Irving back from injury, the expectation was that this was a much better team coming into this season. They should be able to, at the very least, make a series against the Warriors more competitive, if not win it.
Through 70 games in the regular season, we still don’t have any idea whether that premise is true or not. Though, the best bet is that this Cavs team isn’t necessarily better than last year’s, for some reason.
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Again, that can be fixed.
Especially for a LeBron-led team, it’s easy to coast through the regular season. After all, the postseason is what this team will ultimately be judged for – not by what seed they clinch in the regular season.
Just because the Cleveland Cavaliers aren’t who we expected them to be at this point in the season doesn’t mean they won’t be at the end of the year.
LeBron James has roughly six weeks to get his team in order, before his real season starts – probably in the Eastern Conference Finals. And while the Cavs are nowhere near close to where they should be, this is not the time to panic.
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The Cleveland Cavaliers will be fine. They’ll get to the NBA Finals and still have a puncher’s chance against the Warriors, or San Antonio Spurs. It’ll be OK, Cleveland.