The Cleveland Cavaliers have been one of the biggest success stories in the NBA this season, winning 64 games and running away with the number one seed in the Eastern Conference. The biggest change on the Cavs between last year and this year in terms of personnel wasn’t on the roster but was instead the coach Kenny Atkinson, whose offensive ingenuity was on full display throughout the campaign.
Recently, Atkinson received a prestigious honor when it was announced that he had won the National Basketball Coaches Association’s Coach of the Year award, per NBA insider Marc Stein on X.
Overall, it’s been a historic season for the Cavs, who got off to a blistering 15-0 start to the campaign and never looked back, bolstering their roster at the trade deadline by adding De’Andre Hunter from the Atlanta Hawks, who has fit in nicely with core pieces like Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley.
Of course, Atkinson is well aware that the real money is made in the NBA postseason, and the Cavs will now have a first round matchup with the Miami Heat beginning Sunday evening. While the Cavs would figure to have the advantage in virtually every basketball-related metric in this series, there is something unquantifiably strange about the Heat around this time of year, as evidenced by their bizarre sequence of made tip shots in their play-in round win vs the Hawks on Friday evening.
The Cavs will have to be prepared for a physical matchup, but if they are able to stick to the game plan and not let the Heat’s desire to muck up the game get into their heads, they should have a relatively easy time advancing to the second round of the postseason for a matchup against either the Indiana Pacers or Milwaukee Bucks.
In any case, Game 1 of Cavs vs Heat is slated for Sunday evening at 7:00 PM ET and will be carried nationally by TNT.
