Cavs take on Magic in the first round

The first-round will be a battle of similarly constructed teams.

The Cleveland Cavaliers did all they could to ensure they stayed in the fourth seed to take on the Orlando Magic in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. This included seemingly throwing the ending of Sunday’s game against the Charlotte Hornets. The Cavs will have home-court advantage in a series that is set to begin Saturday or Sunday of this week.

The Cavaliers split the four-game regular season series with the Magic this season which included both teams winning one on the road. Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland have been very good in the games they’ve played against Orlando. Mitchell has averaged 27.3 points on .443/.357/.818 shooting splits with 7.3 assists and 2.7 steals in three games. Garland, meanwhile, has put up 26.7 points on .509/.389/.864 shooting splits with eight assists to just 2.3 turnovers per game.

That allowed the Cavs to post a 121.5 offensive rating against them in four games which is the fourth-highest for any Orlando opponent this season. Past success doesn’t mean that they’re going to do so again. The Magic finished the season with the third-best defensive rating (110.8) behind only the Minnesota Timberwolves and Boston Celtics.

“They got great positional size all over the floor,” Bickerstaff said. “They got individuals who can create their own shot, put a ton of pressure on you, and they’re really sound defensively. If you allow them to play in the half court, they use their size defensively to keep everybody in front, crowd the paint, and make it difficult.”

Max Strus echoed a similar sentiment.

“They play physical, they play hard,” Strus said. “They’re young and they’re hungry. So we’ve got to be ready to match their physicality and the physicality goes up in the playoffs. We better be ready to make some tough plays, play tougher, and just play our game. We got enough talented guys in this locker room.”

The Cavs made it clear by their actions in the fourth quarter against the Hornets that their primary goal this season is to win in the first round. Their tanking may have given them a better chance of doing that while simultaneously making it much more difficult to advance past the second round if they get that chance. We’ll see if that strategy pays off over the next several weeks.