Over the past few weeks, we have been ranking the teams in the Eastern Conference by how much of a threat they pose to the Boston Celtics next season. We’re putting the Cleveland Cavaliers at spot No. 5 on our list.
The Celtics and Cavaliers met in the second round of the playoffs this past season, and it is possible to argue that Cleveland was Boston’s biggest foe for the entire postseason. The Cavs routed the Celtics at home in Game 2 of that series, and even if things wrapped up in five games, Cleveland really seemed to have Boston figured out. It’s hard to imagine the Cavaliers actually going on to beat the Celtics in a playoff round, and they didn’t do much to improve those chances this offseason. So while Cleveland is going to be one of the better teams in the East once again in the 2024-25 campaign, it appears as if there is a limit to how good this group can be.
Let’s look a bit closer at the Cavaliers and examine why that might be the case.