NBA Playoffs 2015: Eastern Conference Finals Preview
This should be good. The Eastern Conference Finals yields a match up that sees Lebron James’ Cavaliers take on the very team oriented Atlanta Hawks. The last time the Hawks won the championship they were not even in Atlanta. They have never even played in a round this far since the league split into the east and west conferences.
The Hawks had a hall of fame big man Bob Pettit leading the way. He averaged twenty-four points and sixteen and a half rebounds a game to lead them to their first and only title. They are going to need an effort like that again from their big men if they want to beat the best player in the world and his team. He is hungry to bring a championship to Cleveland. That franchise needs him; he is the face of it.
The franchise called the Cleveland Cavaliers has not had much success before drafting Lebron James. They had never even had a finals appearance before him, and when he left for four years Cleveland did so bad that their pick did not fall out of the top four. Those picks failed to bring them back to relevancy as they ended up welcoming Lebron right back. And it has paid off big time; they are one series away from the NBA finals. If they want a chance at greatness and making this season their most memorable, they will need to get the same play out of Lebron that they have been getting all playoffs. He has made the fans forget lately they even had Kevin Love as a big part of their team. This will probably be Cleveland’s toughest test as a team. The Hawks play very team oriented basketball and will no doubt test them with their defense and good ball movement.
If the Hawks want a chance at greatness they will need to follow in the footsteps of their last championship winning team by getting great play from their bigs. If Al Horford and Paul Millsap can control the paint and score effectively they can cause trouble for a Cleveland Cavaliers team that is truly lacking in size. They rely on the awkward Timofey Mosgov too much now that Kevin Love is out. Horford and Millsap should be able to take advantage even when he is guarding them let alone when someone smaller might be there… Jeff Teague is a big factor too in this match up because his defense could really take Kyrie Irving out of the games. Irving has been dealing with injuries and now facing a point guard like Jeff Teague after just dueling John Wall will leave him with no breaks. Teague may be the one point guard who matches up with Wall’s speed.
No doubt these will be hard fought grinding games. The Hawks love to play that type of game and Lebron has plenty of experience with those. A few possessions could be the deciding factor of each game as I see all of them being very close in the end. If Lebron can take one of the first two games and shift the home-court advantage back to them it could really spell trouble for Atlanta because it will pressure them to win in Cleveland. They must take the first two and put Lebron in a hole if they want to win and move on to the Finals.
