The good news for the Cleveland Cavaliers is that they now have nothing but time on their hands as they sit back, relax, and wait to see whether Miami or Atlanta is coming to town next. The reason for this is that with their 99-78 dismantling of the Detroit Pistons on Sunday, the Cavaliers have completed their first round sweep of their division rivals.

It would be easy to sit here wax poetic about how great the Cavaliers are and how important it was for them to sweep their first round opponents. We could talk about how the Cavaliers are the first team in the NBA to advance to the 2nd round. While all those things are probably true, the bigger story in this series as far as I’m concerned was the ineptitude of the Detroit Pistons.

A once proud team full of champions with hearts of lions suddenly looked pedestrian and wholly disinterested in playing the game of basketball. And that’s the bad news for the Cavaliers. While everyone else is playing games filled with playoff intensity and thus kicking their game into the next gear, the Cavaliers merely had to go through the motions to send the Pistons home, which is evidently right where they wanted to be.    [Read more...]