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An NBA season can end in many ways.
For about half of the league, the season ends without ever really beginning. Teams that finish in the lottery or lose in the Play-In Tournament never had much on the line.
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Losing in the actual playoffs can vary. A hard-fought exit for a young team like the Toronto Raptors is still encouraging. A brutal 3-1 collapse from a title contender in Boston is harrowing, but they have enough championship DNA to feel good about running it back.
But then, there are the teams that get humbled. The ones who have to swallow some reality pills.
It’s hard to feel good about anything that comes on the wrong side of a sweep, and that only gets worse the deeper you go in the postseason.
For the Cleveland Cavaliers, I’m not sure a clearer message could have been sent in the Eastern Conference Finals: This team isn’t good enough.
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Let’s start by adding context.
Getting this far is hard
Making it to the Eastern Conference Finals is an achievement. It’s not the ultimate goal, of course, but an accomplishment nonetheless. This was only the ninth time in 56 years that Cleveland made it to the final four. That means something.
It’s more impressive considering this team was put together on the fly. Darius Garland, De’Andre Hunter, and Lonzo Ball were all supposed to be key contributors to this team. All of which were shipped out in February, leaving the newcomers only a few weeks to acclimate themselves to Cleveland.
Teams that make a blockbuster move at the deadline rarely go deep into the playoffs. Inserting James Harden into the lineup and managing to go this far in the postseason is an anomaly. Again, that’s worth something.
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But it still wasn’t good enough.
The Cavs hit the ground running in round one. They surged to a 2-0 series lead over the Raptors, riding the momentum of Donovan Mitchell and James Harden. The two-shot creators looked ready to rewrite the narratives around their playoff shortcomings and hit no hitches in their first two playoff games together.
That didn’t last.
Mitchell and Harden hit a wall in Toronto. They struggled to generate…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/cavs-prove-aren-t-good-090000637.html
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Publish date : 2026-05-26 09:00:00
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