Which First-Round Possibility Would Cavs Prefer To Face?

After the Orlando Magic snagged the No. 7 seed courtesy of a play-in win over the Atlanta Hawks, the Cavs’ possibilities are down to three — the Hawks, Chicago Bulls, or Miami Heat. (Orlando will face the defending champion Boston Celtics in the first round.)

Atlanta will now get homecourt advantage when it faces the winner of the Bulls-Heat play-in game, taking place on Wednesday. The Hawks face the winner of that game on Friday — which is when the Cavs will learn who they’re facing.

So Cleveland has been at practice all week, not knowing which team it will square off against. That’s OK. The Cavaliers are the No. 1 seed and will be highly favored to overtake whoever it is that emerges from No. 8.

Frankly, I think it’d be cool for the Cavs’ first-round opponent to be the Hawks — who feature former Cavs forward Georges Niang and wing Caris LeVert, traded to Atlanta for forward De’Andre Hunter at the NBA deadline in February.

But if the Cavs had their pick of opponents, well, I’d probably go with the Bulls. They just seem to match up best with Chicago. At least, they do when the idea is a potential sweep.

This is something I spoke about last week on Hoops Wire Live show from 330 to Go. (Clip link is right here or directly below.)

That said, for the Cavs, it really shouldn’t matter. If they play like they do for most of the NBA regular season, they will get out of the first round, and probably fairly easily.

Oh, and for the record, Cavs guard Darius Garland was asked during an appearance on FanDuel Sports’ Run It Back if he had a preference on a first-round opponent. He just smiled.

“I get to answer quietly, right?” he said.

As for having a week off and not knowing who they’ll face, he indicated it’s not that big of a deal.

“I don’t think it’s a disadvantage because we see everyone (multiple) times a year,” Garland said. “I would like to know who to prepare for, but like I said, we’ve seen everybody three or four times, so we know the matchups, we know all the schemes and stuff that we’re gonna do. It’s just tough with the whole week off.”