The Cleveland Cavaliers have just finished their seventh game of the series against the Victor Oladipo-led Indiana Pacers, a series that went back and forth till the final whistle. LeBron James has never been challenged like he was in the first round of this year's playoffs, largely due to the lack of production from his teammates rather than his own fault. He played an historic series with three games scoring 40+ points, and an iconic game winner at the buzzer in Game 5.
But for the Cleveland Cavaliers, after their competitive series against Indiana, they now focus their attention to the second round, and their opponents.
They will face-off against the Toronto Raptors, starting in Game 1 which will be played in Canada with the large fan base they have.
LeBron looks to the next opponent
LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers organization are very familiar with facing off against the Toronto Raptors in a playoff series. Last year, the Cavaliers swept the Raptors 4-0 in the Eastern Conference semi finals and in 2016 the Cavaliers got past Toronto in six games in the Eastern Conference Finals. Although the team is a little different this year, without Kyrie Irving and a few more pieces, the Cavs are almost a completely different team so it will certainly be a bigger challenge this year for LeBron.
But LeBron looks forward to the challenge.
Speaking in a post-game interview, he said:
“They’re a great basketball team, kudos to Dwyane Casey first of all. They got like 10 or 12 guys that can come in and produce every single night and we know the head of the snake is DeRozan and Lowry, but those guys off the bench, they come in with the same attitude and the same confidence as the starters.
We don’t have much time to prepare, so we going to go into Game 1 winging it and go from there.”
A look at the series
Although the LeBron James-led Cavaliers have had their worst season since he returned home, the King is still playing at arguably the highest level of his career. And for the Raptors, they have yet again had a great season and put themselves in a good situation in the playoffs, but there is always something about King James that frightens DeMar and Kyle.
The two all-stars for Toronto have been criticized in recent years for failing under the pressure of facing LeBron James in a playoff series, and often fall apart in the final games of the series. But we will just have to wait and see what happens, we know LeBron will probably need to score 40+ points a few times to give his team a chance but maybe that is what it will take, and maybe the Cavs can pull the upset over the 1 seed Raptors this year. If so, it will be the third year in a row that "the chosen one" has ended Drake’s season.
