The Cleveland Cavaliers are the first team to punch their ticket to the second round of the 2017 postseason. Cleveland completed its sweep of the Indiana Pacers on Sunday with a 106-102 victory. Despite the fact that it was a sweep, all four games were really good, as the Cavs’ largest margin of victory in any game was six points.
This kind of illustrated a recurring issue that Cleveland had coming into the postseason: its defense. Indiana scored at least 102 points in every game of the series, which on the surface isn’t a bad thing – the Pacers were in the top half of the league in offensive efficiency, team effective field goal percentage, and points per game during the regular season.
But with some historical context thanks to ESPN, this series showed that the Cavalier defense still needs to be tightened up a bit.
Some more @MicahAdams13 gems illustrating how un-fixed Cleveland's team D remains … pic.twitter.com/gylA8BNgtp
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) April 23, 2017
As always, the disclaimer for something like this is that just because something has happened in the past doesn’t necessarily mean anything going forward. It’s possible that the Cavaliers are able to become a statistical outlier and win a title without reaching a certain defensive standard that other teams have reached in the past. But we’ve known for a while that Cleveland’s defense needs to flip a switch before it takes on some of the better offensive squads in the later rounds of the postseason – teams like Toronto, Boston, and Washington in the East and, of course, a potential Finals matchup against any of the top-3 teams in the West.
Odds are tightening things up defensively will be Cleveland’s No. 1 priority while it has a few days off before the start of its conference semifinal series. There’s still some time to get things relatively figured out, but through one series, the Cavs’ defensive issues still exist.
