The regular season in the NBA is over, and the stage is set. We are ready to go into another exciting postseason as the battle for NBA's best team continues. The playoffs will start on Saturday with the defending NBA champions, the Cleveland Cavaliers, playing on their home court against the Indiana Pacers. Cavaliers finished the season as the number two seed in the Eastern Conference while the Pacers finished at the seventh spot.
Up-and-down season for the Cavs
The Cavaliers are the defending champions, and they are looking to repeat this year. After a historic comeback in last year's Finals against the Golden State Warriors, the Cavs haven't quite played at that championship level this season.
They finished the regular season with four straight losses, and since the all-star break, their record is 12-15. Not impressive. The biggest issue for them was on the defensive end considering they allowed 107.3 points per game. Cleveland's overall record at the end was 51-31, and they finished the season as the second-best team in the East, behind the Boston Celtics team that ended up as the number one seed. This should not be too big of a deal for LeBron James who has made it to the Finals as the two seed five times in his career. Also, some more bad news for Indiana fans: LeBron James has never lost a first-round playoff series in his entire career. Since the 2005-2006 season, LeBron James-led teams have reached at least the second round.
So it's safe to say that the Cavaliers are the absolute favorites in this matchup as well.
LeBron James vs. Paul George
The Cavaliers and the Pacers played four times this season. The Cavs won three of those four matchups, with their latest win over the Pacers coming just ten days ago. It was one of the best and most exciting games of the 2016-17 regular season as the Cavs won it 135-130 in a double-overtime.
In that loss, Paul George played one of the best games of his career. He finished the game with 43 points, nine rebounds, and nine assists. LeBron James answered with a triple-double in that game, finishing with 41 points, 14 rebounds, and 11 assists. It was an epic duel between two superstars, and hopefully, they'll put on a show again in the playoffs.
In his four games against the Cavaliers this season, Paul George has averaged 24.8 points, 8.8 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game. George and James have met three times in the playoffs in their careers, LeBron won all three series. All three of those series went to at least six games, and there's no doubt that this year's matchup will be exciting as well.
The Pacers and Cavaliers have met once before in the playoffs, with Indiana winning 3-1 in the first round of the 1998 playoffs.
