Cleveland Cavaliers’ Defense Leading The Way To Championship

The Cleveland Cavaliers might be talked about more because of the offensive explosions they can put up, but the defense has been the feature that is leading the team to the promised land this season. The Cleveland Cavaliers went out and got players like Lebron James and Kyrie Irving so they could outscore any and all comers. Despite that they have managed to post some of the most impressive defensive numbers of any team in the playoffs this year and that has them just two wins away from the championships round.

If the Cleveland Cavaliers do indeed get to the NBA Championships, it has long looked like the team they will take on is the Golden State Warriors. If that is the case, the Cleveland Cavaliers will need to call on their defense more than they already have in order to beat the class of the Western conference. Before the team can start looking that far in the future, they need to close out the series against an Atlanta Hawks team that was the Eastern Conference’s best during the regular season.

In order to close out that series, the Cleveland Cavaliers will need to do more of the same from Friday night when the two teams pick up the series on Sunday night. The game was a back and forth tilt for the first half, but the team took control in the third quarter, the Cavs defense worked a little magic, outscored the Hawks in the third period 30-17, and then sat back and ran out the clock in the fourth en route to a 94-82 win.

Lebron James clearly feels as though the Cleveland Cavaliers have the best defense in the NBA right now. After the Cleveland Cavaliers won the first game of this series, the star guard claimed as much. It turns out that in the playoffs, that claim stands up. Among the four teams remaining, the Cleveland Cavaliers are the best at points allowed at 91.4 per game, blocked shots at seven per game, three-point shooting field goal percentage allowed (28.6 percent), and field-goal percentage allowed (41.2 percent). With those numbers, it’s not really surprising that the Cavs were able to take game two without the aid of Irving who missed the contest due to a lingering injury. The team has also played without one of its bigger acquisitions in center Kevin Love when he went down in the regular season. Now the Cleveland Cavaliers are just a few wins away from showing even a team that hasn’t been great defensively for most of the season, can win championships with an improved “D.”

[Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images]