The Cavaliers played the professional version of Pop-A-Shot on Wednesday night.
Led by J.R. Smith's six first-half triples, a franchise record for an individual, they hit an NBA-record (regular season and playoffs) 25 3-pointers, on their way to a 123-98 Game 2 win against the Hawks, who were humbled after playing gallantly in a losing effort two nights before.
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We're only two games in and this Eastern Conference semifinal series is over. If we're keeping it a buck (100, that is), so are the Eastern Conference finals. As much as ESPN, which will air the ECF exclusively, wants you to believe in the Heat or the Raptors, it's a foregone conclusion.
The Cavs are going to the NBA Finals. You can front if you want.
LeBron James may not be at the height of his prime anymore, but his reign atop the East is still longer than Luc Longley's, especially with a healthy Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving by his side, especially when his team is moving the ball like the Spurs (27 assists on Wednesday) and shooting the cover off it like the Warriors.
Dahntay Jones makes history. (Getty Images)
Golden State and San Antonio, and maybe, maybe Oklahoma City, are the only teams in this year's NBA playoffs that are capable of beating the Cavs.
The Warriors' record 73-win season blinded us; it featured the Stephen Curry Show, a traveling-circus shooting display that kept all our Twitter, Instagram and Facebook feeds clogged on a nightly basis. If it wasn't' the Warriors' wizardry out West, it was San Antonio showcasing how teamwork can make the dream work as it flirted with 70 victories and a flawless home record before coasting toward the end of the season. They grabbed our attention whenever Russell Westbrook wasn't putting up triple-doubles .
Even amid the soap-opera subplots ( Why isn't LeBron playing music before games? What's going with Kyrie Irving's girl? Did J.R. choke a dude out? ), the Cavs still ran the table in the Eastern Conference from start to finish. Through six games in the postseason, no one is playing better ball than them.
The Warriors are thriving without Curry, who's still recovering from a sprained MCL; however, their struggles throughout Game 2 against the Blazers, a squad picked to be among the league's worst after losing four starters in the offseason and might be in the second round only because of injuries to Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. The Spurs, typically robotic in their destruction of their opposition, looked human when they blew Game 2 to the Thunder on their own floor.
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Sure, Miami owned Cleveland at home, winning by an average of 18 points in two meetings at American Airlines Arena; however, Cleveland would have home-court advantage in the ECF. The Cavs have scored 100 or more points in all six of their playoff games thus far and have only given up that many on one occasion. The Heat let the Hornets take them to seven games in the first round. The Raptors? Let's be honest: Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan are nice enough guys, but they aren't superstars by anyone's definition of the term.
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Wednesday night's performance was an anomaly. Ten different Cavaliers hit 3-pointers. For crying out loud, Dahntay Jones was out there making history (he sank the record 24th 3-pointer), but it was still indicative of what the Cavs are capable of doing.
So, go ahead watch the games over the course of the next three weeks, but know you'll be seeing LeBron James in the Finals for the sixth straight season.