LeBron James has been to seven straight NBA Finals, but this Cavaliers team may have LeBron's weakest supporting cast in the past decade. Cleveland's defense ranked 29th in the league in a year where seven teams were actively trying to lose for two months. While the Cavs' defense flipped the switch enough to make it to the Finals last season, their defensive rating was 1.6 points better during the regular season in 2016-17 and they still gave up over 110 points in eight of their 18 playoff games last postseason.

The new-look roster for Cavs

After trading away nearly half of their team at the trade deadline, the Cavaliers will be relying heavily on some players with little to no playoff experience.

Jordan Clarkson, Cedi Osman, and Larry Nance have never checked into a postseason game, and Rodney Hood has only 11 playoff games under his belt.

However, Cleveland does have the best one-two punch in the East with LeBron and the always-underrated Kevin Love. Love is nearly averaging a double-double this season with 17.6 points and 9.3 rebounds per game, and he's legitimately one of the best three-point shooters in the league hitting 41.5 percent of his shots beyond the arc. No matter how bad Cleveland's defense is, their offense will be nearly unstoppable yet again this year.

The Pacers will have some confidence heading into this playoff series, winning three of their four games against the Cavs during the regular season, although Cleveland did win the most recent matchup.

Victor Oladipo is a shoe-in to win the Most Improved Player award this year as he's scored 23.1 points per game with a player efficiency rating of 23.1, and he led the league in steals with 2.4 per game. Oladipo will be asked to carry much of the load offensively, and he may even be matched up with LeBron James for parts of the series.

Indiana blew away everyone's preseason expectations thanks to an incredibly deep roster.

Pacers bring the depth

The Pacers are two deep at point guard with Darren Collison and Corey Joseph; Lance Stephenson and Bojan Bogdanovic are both capable of putting up big numbers on the wing, and their big man rotation of Domatas Sabonis, Myles Turner, and Thaddeus Young is extremely underrated.

Indiana ranks in the top 12 in the league in offensive, defensive, and net rating. The key to their success has been winning the turnover margin, as they rank third in opponent turnovers per game while having the league's fifth-lowest turnover total on offense.

While the Pacers have had a fantastic season and will force Cleveland to bring their A-game every night, I am simply not betting against LeBron in the Eastern Conference Playoffs. Cavaliers in six.
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