Bradley Beal and the Washington Wizards had a great regular season, fishing the campaign with a record of 49-33 which landed them the third seed in the Eastern Conference. This success continued through to the NBA playoffs, winning their first round series against the Hawks in six games. But they were confronted by the young and energetic Boston Celtics team, they went back and forth but eventually lost the series in seven games. Although they lost, their star shooting guard has decided to talk about the Cavaliers, and suggest the idea that the Cavs were afraid of the possibility of facing his team in a playoff series.

Beal explains the Cavs' fear of Washington

Although the Cleveland Cavaliers are performing at a historic level with a record of 9-0 so far in the 2017 playoffs, it doesn't seem to phase Bradley Beal. Beal holds strong belief that the Cleveland Cavaliers were genuinely worried that they would have to run into the Washington Wizards in a playoff series this year. Beal said:

"Cleveland didn’t want to see us. I always said that. I felt like that’s the reason they didn’t play us in the second round. They didn’t want to see us in the second round, if they were going to go down, they were going to go down in the conference finals. They didn’t want to go down in the second round."

Brad Beal suggests with this statement that the LeBron James and the Cavs purposely avoided finishing the season with the number one seed in the Eastern Conference to avoid matching up with the Wizards in the second round.

But does this statement hold truth? I really... really doubt it.

The Cavaliers fear no one

Bradley Beal can believe what he wants, but the Cavaliers have been the Eastern Conference champions for the past two seasons and are looking to make it a third straight, with the brilliant 9-0 start to this years playoffs. Suggesting the Cavs manipulated their standings to avoid the Wizards sounds ludicrous, especially because of their outlandish dominance over East foes in the past three years.

After starting the third round series 1-0 against the team who defeated the Wizards, the Boston Celtics. The Cavs are looking to continue their elite play, hoping to improve to 2-0 on Friday. If this Cleveland squad can win both games at the TD Garden they will have a commanding grip on the series, heading back to the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland for games 3 and 4. But let's not count out the Celtics just yet, crazier things have happened in the past.