CLEVELAND, Ohio — The standings right now tell an intriguing story. Cleveland sits fourth in the Eastern Conference. Two games behind Boston, one behind New York and seven back of the first-place Detroit Pistons. But the next six games? They have the power to rewrite that entire picture.
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On the latest episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast, host Ethan Sands and cleveland.com Cavs beat reporter Chris Fedor break down exactly why the upcoming stretch against the Knicks, Bucks, Pistons, Nets and Celtics is the most consequential sequence of games on Cleveland’s schedule.
“I think from a standing standpoint, Ethan, I think the next six games will determine whether or not the Cavs can get to the two seed or even the one seed,” Fedor said on the podcast. “But if the Cavs don’t handle this stretch very well, then I think it’s going to solidify that they’re just going to hang around the four to five spot for the rest of the season.”
The difference between the 2-seed and the 5-seed in a tight Eastern Conference bracket can mean the difference between a favorable first-round matchup and a brutal one. Home-court advantages in close series. Momentum. The margin for error shrinks the further down the bracket you slide.
But the standings conversation is almost secondary to what these six games will reveal about this version of the Cavaliers.
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Consider the James Harden era’s resume so far. The signature win? A road victory in Denver — against a Nuggets squad missing key components and playing well below their expectations. Beyond that? Brooklyn. Sacramento. Charlotte. Opponents the Cavs were supposed to handle. The training wheels are officially off.
And this gauntlet couldn’t arrive at a more dangerous time.
Every opponent in this stretch is constructed specifically to exploit Cleveland’s most glaring flaw. The Cavs are 24th in defensive rebound percentage. Boston, Detroit, and New York are all among the NBA’s top seven offensive rebounding teams.
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Fedor made the playoff threat explicit on the podcast: “So if we talk about, like, some potential impediments to the Cavs getting to the NBA Finals, some real legitimate Eastern Conference threats, who we talking about? We’re talking about New York. We’re probably talking about Philadelphia. We’re probably talking about the Boston Celtics. So, like all the teams that are perceived threats to the Cavs are capable of exploiting this problem that the Cavs have.”
And then there’s the chemistry reality. An area that gets overlooked in all the statistical analysis.
“This Cavs team still in the entirety of the James Harden era, have had one practice as a whole. James Harden talked about it a couple of games ago, they’re going to have to use these games as practice. Obviously, it was helpful to go up against some lesser quality opponents to get those lessons. Now that kind of ramps up,” Sands said.
Using games as practice is manageable against the Hornets. It’s something else entirely when the opponent is a Knicks squad with playoff fury, a Celtics team with championship DNA, or a Pistons group built to physically dismantle you for four quarters.
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The answers — good or bad — start arriving this week. Catch every breakdown on Wine and Gold Talk.
Here’s the podcast for this week:
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