The Cleveland Cavaliers are set to enter the NBA Finals for the third consecutive season with an opportunity to defend their NBA title against the Golden State Warriors.
Cleveland comes into the matchup having won 12 of their 13 postseason games, sweeping through the first two rounds. However, numerous sports betting companies have them as the clear underdogs against the Warriors, which is something that has Kevin Love scratching his head, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN.
“The whole underdog thing is funny to me, because, yeah, at the end of the day we are defending our title,” Love said Saturday after the Cavs’ first practice in preparation for the Warriors since clinching a spot in the Finals. “We’re trying to repeat, which is so hard to do. I think we will use it as fuel, we will use it as motivation, but the idea of playing into it? It’s tough for me to say that is the case. I don’t feel like we’re underdogs. We match up well with them, and I think they’d say the same about us.”
The Cavaliers have steamrolled through the competition up to this point in the playoffs currently holding the highest offensive efficiency at 120.7 points per 100 possessions and second with 116.3 points per game on playoff-best marks with 50.7 percent shooting from the field and 43.5 percent from beyond the arc.
Cleveland has been able to do much of that behind high-level production from their big three. LeBron James is playing some of the best basketball of his career in his 14th season. Meanwhile, Kyrie Irving is coming off a strong Eastern Conference Finals performance where he averaged 25.8 points on 62.2 percent shooting from the field and 50 percent from 3-point range.
Love has also held more than his own end of the bargain in the playoffs averaging 17.2 points on 45.7 percent shooting from the field and 47.5 percent from beyond the arc with 10.4 rebounds. This includes notching a double-double in each of the five games in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics.
Despite all that, the Warriors are viewed as the favorites given their own dominance through the Western Conference holding a clean 12-o record with Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant leading the way. Durant is averaging 25.2 points on 55.6 percent shooting and 41.7 percent from beyond the arc while Curry is averaging 28.6 points on 50.2 percent shooting and 43.1 percent from 3-point range.
Regardless of the betting odds, this is could be quite a memorable matchup between the two best teams in the league for the past three years. It is the first time in NBA history that the two Finals teams have a combined 24-1 playoffs record, which should make for a highly entertaining seven-game series with the NBA title on the line.