Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Indiana Pacers: Eastern Conference Semis Preview

Plus, a prediction!

This is what Downtown Indianapolis looks like. I’ll be there next week. Photo by TROY ALLEN on Unsplash

Sunday evening the Cleveland Cavaliers will take the floor for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Indiana Pacers at Rocket Arena.

This series promises to be a much better test for the Cavs than the previous round against the Miami Heat was. It will also serve as a much higher mountain to climb than what the first round against the Milwaukee Bucks was for the Pacers.

Does the Regular Season Matter?

The Cavs and Pacers faced off four times during the regular season and Indiana won three of those games.

The Pacers won the first matchup back on Jan. 12, which snapped Cleveland’s third-longest winning streak of the season at 12 games. In the rematch two nights later the Cavs went on the road and beat the Pacers — who were without Tyrese Haliburton¹. Both of those games, obviously, happened before the Cavs made the trade for De’Andre Hunter. The final two matchups in the final week of the regular season both went the way of the Pacers. In the first, Jarrett Allen was the only member of the starting five for the Cavs to play, and he did not play in the second half. In the last matchup, Allen played 41 seconds and was the only member of Cleveland’s rotation to suit up for the game.

That’s a really long way to say that the results of the regular season matchups between these two teams are meaningless coming into this series.

There are things that might translate from the regular season to the postseason, though.