Reacting to the Cavs’ first round playoff matchup with the Miami Heat: Wine and Gold Talk podcast

takeaways

• The Cavs will face the Miami Heat in the first round of the playoffs.
• Miami’s experience could be a factor in the series.
• Cavs have a strong fourth-quarter performance record.
• Miami’s defense has shown inconsistency this season.
• Cavs can exploit Miami’s lack of depth.
• Bam Adebayo may not pose significant problems for the Cavs.
• Cavs have a more complete roster than Miami.
• The importance of defensive strategies in the series.
• Cavs’ offensive firepower is a key advantage.
• Both hosts predict Cavs will win the series in five games.

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Read the automated transcript of today’s podcast below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it may contain errors and misspellings.

Ethan Sands: What up, Cavs nation? I’m your host, Ethan Sez, and I’m back with another episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast. It’s me and Chris Fedor today, Cavs beat reporter, and we are coming to you with the official announcement of who the Cavs will be playing in the first round of the playoffs. It will be the Miami Heat. They beat The Atlanta Hawks 123, 114 in the final game of the play in tournament for the Eastern Conference on Friday night. We obviously all know.

Chris Fedor: Let’s go.

Ethan Sands: Exactly. Chris Fedor is extremely excited for this because that means he does not have to go to Atlanta. Unfortunate for the Cavs fans and the Cavs players who are looking forward to playing against Karris Lavert and George Niang if that was what happened. But Chris, now we have the opportunity to break down the different matchups, the different scenarios and tactics that will be used against the Cleveland Cavaliers by the Miami Heat. And they have two days of preparation to get ready. Well, basically just one day of preparation to get ready, knowing who they will be facing. And they’ll get to do that a lot tomorrow and at practice, and we’ll get to talk to them afterwards. Chris, what is the biggest thing that stands out to you when it comes to the Miami Heat and the potential matchup with the Cleveland Cavaliers?

Chris Fedor: I think the thing that stands out to me, Ethan, is their guys. Their guys have been through things that the Cavs players have not been through, and there is no substitute for experience. And I think this is the kind of team that could benefit the Cavs as they move forward. Playing against Bam Adebayo and the physicality of him and having to deal with Eric Spoelstra as a chess master and a playoff tactician, and Andrew Wiggins, who has been to the NBA Finals before, Tyler Herro, who is a really, really good guard, dribbling, shooting, passing like he is, doing so much for Miami on the offensive end of the floor. It’s just pretty good preparation, honestly, for what is ahead, the tougher matchups that are ahead for the Cavs. So I don’t, I don’t think there’s a situation where there should be any nerves. There should be any thought of Miami beating the Cavs four times in seven tries. But, but I do think that these are the kinds of series that a team like the Cavs can benefit from just because of the various ways that they’re going to be, quote, unquote, tested and the various things that they’re going to see that that are going to help them translate things a little bit better into the second round and into the conference finals if they get that far.

Ethan Sands: Chris, when the play in tournament became a thing in 2021, right. Like since then there’s only been ahead of this season, There were only two teams that were number 10 seeds that ended up defeating the number 9 seed to make it into the deciding game. And the Heat and The Mavericks added two more wins to that total. So the number 10 seed are now 4, 6 in initial playing games since 2021. But I do want to point out just going through the matchup that happened on Friday night, the Heat versus the Atlanta Hawks. And I think we can all be honest, right, it did not look like either of these teams, as Chris was mentioning, would pose a fight to the Cavs. One, because I think everybody had figured that outside of the odds betters who had Atlanta as the favorite on their home court. I think Miami was a team that people looked at and were like, they have the pieces to take down this team and they have the pieces to take down the Atlanta Hawks. But I do think that just the overall outlook, the overall having to play as many games in the play in tournament to get this far, it adds wear and tear to the body, right? It adds things that you have to take in mind into the conditioning of these players. And sure, the mindset is going to be there as they face the Cavs on Sunday at Rocket arena for the first game of the Eastern Conference first round of the playoffs. But I think it’s extremely important to note that this game didn’t feel very competitive until like the fourth quarter. The Miami Heat had a big lead and then they had let Atlanta come all the way back and take their first lead of the game in that fourth quarter. What did you take away from this matchup in particular the final playing game matchup between Miami and Atlanta that the Cavs could look to exploit?

Chris Fedor: Well, that’s the thing that Miami has done throughout the course of the season, Ethan. We talked about it the other night on the podcast. I think there are 13 or 15 games where they’ve led in the fourth quarter and those turned into losses. So they just haven’t been able to figure out consistently how to best close out these games. And look, part of that is because of everything that that went chaotic with Jimmy Butler. You know, Jimmy Butler was their closer. Jimmy Butler was the guy that they went to in late game situations either to create for himself or create for others. So now all of a sudden you start changing the Roles and the responsibilities of some of these guys on the fly. And sometimes bam. Adebayo is not comfortable in those situations, having to create on his own. Sometimes, you know, the defense is going to send multiple defenders on Tyler Herro and take the ball out of his hand, hands. And he’s not as equipped to deal with that kind of strategy because it’s a new thing for him. Because Davion Mitchell, you know, has been in and out of the lineup, in and out of late game situations because, you know, Andrew Wiggins is not the best ISO creator on his own. So I think part of that had to do with the fact that they lost Jimmy and they kind of like lost a fabric of their team, especially in late game situations. But you saw that, you saw that against Atlanta. Atlanta was able to erase a 17 point deficit. Atlanta was able to reclaim the lead in the fourth quarter. You know, at one point through the first six quarters of the two playing games, Miami never trailed. So there was like a level of consistency that they were showing at various points during this play in tournament until the fourth quarter, which has been a bad habit for. And if you just translate it over to a potential Cav series, what’s one of the things that the Cavs have been best at this year? Taking a lead in the fourth quarter, closing those games out. They have been one of the best fourth quarter teams in the NBA. Did they have slippage in the second half of the season? Yes, they did. Did Darius Garland have some inefficiency in certain games down the stretch of the season? Yes, they did. But Darius is in the conversation for clutch player of the year. Darius was one of the best fourth quarter performers and the Cavs as a team statist were one of the best fourth quarter teams in the NBA. So that is a clear thing where you look at it and say one team, it’s their weakness, the other team, it’s their strength. Should be advantage caps. Right? Then you start looking a little bit further into this matchup and you look at how Miami handled everything throughout the course of tonight’s game against Atlanta and the guys that they played, the guys that they had to give big minutes to because that’s just how they’re constructed. You know, they basically play a seven man rotation. Yeah, there are a couple of guys that, you know, depending on the matchup, depending on the situation, Kyle Anderson, Duncan Robinson, however the game is going, whatever it is that Miami believes it needs in a particular lineup, they’ll go to those guys. But it’s basically a seven man rotation. So now, you look at the Cavs and you say, well, they can go 10 deep, right? They can wear down Miami. They don’t have to ask as much from their main guys in a series against the Heat. So if you start looking at the different areas, well, advantage Cavs when it comes to the bench, significantly. So you start just like breaking it down that kind of way, based on what you’ve seen from Miami throughout the course of the season and of course, what they showed in these two playing games. And you say, well, there are two spots immediately that jump to mind that are advantage Cavs that they should be able to exploit.

Ethan Sands: Chris, just to go a little bit more in depth on the play in tournament history that was made, I mentioned the initial games and how teams that are the 10th seed are now just four and six in those initial contests. The Miami Heat are the first team in NBA play in tournament history to win both of those games as a number 10 seed and get into the playoffs. So, yes, we’ve talked a lot about how they have this playoff pedigree. They have the ability to change the tone of any given series based on what is going on on the floor. Obviously, a lot of that had to do with Jimmy Butler, but there’s still. It kind of feels, and this is. There’s major differences, obviously, but it feels like the Cavs trying to separate themselves from the LeBron James era and the Miami Heat trying to separate themselves from. From what Jimmy Butler was able to accomplish in that part of his career. Right. And obviously there’s different levels to it, but it feels eerily similar when you talk about how they’re trying to find a way to close out these games, as you mentioned. And they’re also trying to figure out how they can just create an environment and a culture that is based on winning without one of their most winningest players on the floor at all times. And as I was mentioning with the conditioning and as I was mentioning with just how many minutes these guys had to play tonight, it was also an overtime game. So bam. Adebayo played 44 minutes, Andrew Wiggins played 43 minutes, Tyler Herro played 44 minutes. And then you go to their bench, and Haywood Highsmith played 40 minutes and Davion Mitchell played 40 minutes. And I know we’ve talked about the bench units for both teams, but we also mentioned on a different podcast about Davion Mitchell being an irritant, being a guy that can kind of get into the fire of what the Miami Heat culture is in the playoffs and catch fire when he needs to. He had back to back triples that were huge. He was four of nine from deep for 16 points. And I think it’s important to note that it was more so his defensive effort that kept him on the floor rather than the shot making and how that could be looked at for an opportunity for Eric Sposia to use that against the Cavs as the point of attack defender against one of their two guards in Darius and Donovan. But I think we can all agree that Darius and Donovan are not Trae Young and are going to be able to do different things better than what Trae was able to do. Especially in a night where you didn’t get it going until as Chris mentioned in a later podcast, they kept it close and Trae Young did what Trae Young does.

Chris Fedor: Yeah, Ethan, I just think there are certain teams across the NBA that no matter the situation that they’re in, no matter the inconsistencies that they’ve shown, no matter the record, you just have a level of respect for them and for what they’ve done. And Miami is that kind of team. There’s just more respect that I had for Miami than a team like Atlanta. They have Eric Spoelstra, a champion. That guy in a seven game series, like, that’s the kind of guy that can throw things at you, that, you know, take you out of rhythm, that make you uncomfortable, that that’s the kind of guy that could theoretically out coach Kenny Atkinson. We’ll see. We’ll see what happens. But he could, you know, bam. Adebayo is an all star, he’s an Olympian, he’s been in big moments before and that’s something that stood out to me a little bit just watching Miami down the stretch of the game and yeah, they blew a big lead and yeah, it was close in the fourth quarter, probably closer than it should have been. But like none of their dudes were afraid. Like, they all went to the ball late in the game, they all wanted that moment. They didn’t look rattled on the road. You know, that’s the one thing that you can say about Miami and Heat culture and everybody jokes about Heat culture and stuff like that, but they’re going to be tough, they’re going to be well prepared, they’re going to be physical, they’re going to be defensive minded and they’re just not going to be afraid because they’re built that kind of way. So yeah, they haven’t been good this year. Their record stinks. There’s a reason why they were in the play in Tournament. I’m not trying to convince anybody that they actually have a shot to pull this upset. I’m just saying, you know, there’s a level of respect and I think the way that the Cavs phrase it is appropriate fear. There’s a level of that when you play against a battle tested championship level organization in Miami and I think that.

Ethan Sands: Could play again into the hand of the Cavs, right? Because obviously if you get to match up against Atlanta, you’re like oh buddy, Buddy Caris, George, I’m going to cook you because you can’t guard me one on one games that you get to see. And obviously I think we have to mention this like in their first playing game, the Atlanta Hawks, Karris and George weren’t good, right? And then in this second one for a majority of the contest, George and Karras were carrying the team as Trae Young was struggling and Onyeka Ngu was going nuclear basically in a game that is showing exactly where he wants to project himself in the future. But then it came down to the final moments of the game and I think all the Cavs fans were like that’s the George Niang I know, that’s the Karis Lavert I know. And going back to my original point, I think the fact of the matter is there is that fear, that appropriate fear of the Miami Heat and the Cavs are not going to play around because they understand what they’re capable of. I think if you would have had the opportunity to play Atlanta, they toy around a little bit. I still think they sweep them, but I think now it’s more like okay, now we have to lock in. Kenny Atkinson is going to have a different mental approach and this gets into my next question for you Chris, but it actually comes from one of our subtexters who’s been asking this question, kind of projecting that the Cavs were going to get the face to Miami Heat in the playoffs in the first round. Anu from Frisco, he says, hey guys, how much zone versus man defense do you expect in the playoffs? What was the percent zone in the regular season versus what you expect in the playoffs as game slows down in the playoffs. So you expect more or less zone defense. And I think this is the perfect series where we talk about Kenny Atkinson who uses a lot of zone but has also talked about Eric Spoelstra who is like the king of zone usage when it comes to coaches around the NBA. Chris, I know you have more detailed information on the percentage of zone’s usage this year Let the fans know what you got.

Chris Fedor: Yeah, just. We’ll put it this way, you know, throughout the course of the regular season, the three zone heaviest teams in the NBA were Cleveland, Philadelphia and Miami. So when you talk about two of those teams matching up in a seven game series and an understanding that, you know, there are some deficiencies within Miami’s defense when it comes to dealing with everything that they’re going to have to deal with when it comes to the Cavs offense. I mean, even Tyler Herro said it on the court following the game. It’s a historically great offense and you know, there’s a reason why they’re the number one offense in the NBA. They’ve got so much firepower, they’ve got so much depth, they’ve got so much versatility. It’s not as predictable as it’s been in the past. There’s so many different elements to this offense that that makes it hard to game plan against and it makes it hard to say, okay, we’re going to take this away and then that’s going to shut off your water. A team takes this away, then the Cavs counter and they go to something else. Right. They have the kinds of options and the kind of personnel to make the counters that they would need to make. So I think the truth is Miami is going to have a hard time dealing with the Cavs offense. Every team in the NBA has had a hard time dealing with the Cavs offense. And there’s just no signs that it’s just going to flatline in the playoffs. There’s just no signs that it’s going to crater in the playoffs like it has the last two years. So when you don’t have know the matchup advantages that you would need to have to deal with the team in man to man situations because of their cutting, because their constant movement, because of their lob threats, because of all the different things that we’ve talked about. What do you do? Try and change it up and you try to go to zone. If you look at some of the matchups between the two teams in the regular season, both teams went heavy zone. So when you have two of the zone heaviest teams that believe in this greatly and also understand some of their own limitations on defense when it comes to playing against a specific opponent, you can definitely expect a healthy amount of zone from both Miami and Cleveland. And I think the thing that becomes fascinating is, you know, if you’re a zone team, if you use zone on defense, you have better knowledge about how to best attack it. So I don’t know how effective Miami zone is going to be against the Cavs because they’ve worked against their own zone behind the scenes. They have different counters that they plan to implement that they’ve been using behind the scenes. And the same thing when it comes to Miami. Who knows how to attack the zone better than Miami, the team that uses it over and over and over. There are some teams, you throw a zone out there and they’re like, oh my God, what do we do? It looks like a JV team trying to play against the varsity, but I just don’t think the Cavs are going to have that feeling and I don’t think Miami is going to have that feeling. So it’s going to be fascinating to me to see how effective those strategies are going to be. And don’t be surprised, be surprised if the CAVS Go boxing one. They might go boxing one on Tyler Hero. They might, they might go boxing one against Duncan Robinson if he’s out there for 30 minutes. I think Kenny has shown a willingness and an adaptability to use a bunch of different looks. And the reason why they dabbled with those things throughout the course of the regular season is so that when they have to go to them in the playoffs, they know what to do, they know how to approach that. They know what each individual responsibility is in those kinds of situations.

Ethan Sands: Chris, and I’m glad you brought up the boxing one because it reminded me of a situation and again, this is going about Kenny Atkinson saying that he’s going to start every season with a ten man rotation. Right. And we’ve known or we’ve seen. It reminded me of Sam Merrill chasing around Duncan Robinson as the one in that boxing one defense. Right. So it’s not necessarily, oh, we’re going to have Isaac Okoro chasing around and sure, it could be, but right. He could be guarding Tyler Herro in certain lineups. Dean Wade could certainly do all of these things, but like, it gives opportunities for other guys to get reps in those scenarios and be like, okay, are you playoff ready? Are you going to have the same level of success? Because statistically Sam Merrow was one of the best defenders on the Cavs this season. Right. But we also have to go back and look at the play in tournament stats that we get from NBA.com right. We talked about it being an overtime game between Miami and Atlanta on Friday, but these two teams, they had 106 points each after four quarters.

Chris Fedor: Yep.

Ethan Sands: That’s not going to be enough to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers. One when you talk about the Miami Heat, who were going up against the Atlanta Hawks, who had a defensive rating in this game of 116. Right. And when you talk about their overall defensive rating in the play in tournament, when they played those two games, they had a defensive rating of 121.5. This is one of the worst defenses this season, and you still are going to tell me that you could only score 106 points against them. That’s telling to me. Sure, Tyler Herro didn’t have his best showing, but I think it’s telling of what the Cavs are going to try and look to exploit. And the other point of the matter is, is that Miami had a 113.2 offensive rating over their play in games and over their last game, just, just tonight against the Atlanta Hawks, they had an offensive rating of 116. So I think it’s important that we continue to look at the statistics, even if it’s a small sample size, because it’ll be important for Kenny Atkinson and we know how analytically based he is and how he’s going to take these and be like, okay, well, I don’t know if I’m going to be worried. Shore, you made 16 threes tonight, but you were playing against the Hawks defense, right?

Chris Fedor: Sure.

Ethan Sands: Dyson Daniels made it a living hell on Tyler Herro at times. Davion Mitchell was out there trying to do the same thing for Trae Young. But I think there’s just certain balances that you feel. And as you mentioned, Chris in a different podcast, I don’t know an area where the Cavs are outmatched by the Miami heats. And the only thing that comes to mind is rebounding, and they’ve put an emphasis on that in practice. So I’m curious to see how they’ll come out with that in their first game of the playoffs. Yeah.

Chris Fedor: The other thing is, Ethan, I think if the Cavs want to play big, I think they can play big better than Miami can. Look, Khalil Ware and Bam Adebayo together has been effective for Miami, but Khalil Ware’s. He’s a rookie. He’s not Evan Mobley. In terms of the trajectory, in terms of the development, in terms of the readiness, he’s not Evan Mobley. So you look at stylistically, all right, if Miami wants to play big, the Cavs can do that better. If Miami wants to play small, you know, they have Evan Mobley anchoring that small ball lineup defense. Miami has Bam anchoring that small ball lineup defense. Like both are pretty good. Options. So now you talk about, okay, what are the other pieces around them and what are the gains of a team on the offensive end of the floor by going to that small ball lineup? And that’s where DeAndre Hunter comes into play. Stylistically, DeAndre is somebody who allows the Cavs to have an immense ceiling on the offensive end of the floor when going quote, unquote small. And at the same time, he has been one of the best isolation defenders in the NBA this year. And at the same time, he can bounce between the three or the four. He can be tough and physical. He can hold his own on the perimeter and in the post. So it’s like, yeah, going away from Jared and Evan is a risk to your defense, but it’s less of a risk when that four man is DeAndre Hunter, as opposed in the past where that four man was George Niang, that four man was Marcus Morris senior, you know, so if you want to go small, if Miami decides, hey, like, we don’t have the advantage with Ware and Bam together, let’s try and go a little bit smaller. I think the Cavs can do that better than Miami too. So I just don’t know the the places where Miami can consistently exploit the Cavs. And that doesn’t mean that the Cavs are going to win every single game by double digits. It doesn’t work like that in the playoffs, and it doesn’t mean that the Cavs are going to sweep. It doesn’t work like that in the playoffs. Sometimes you have a bad night, sometimes the other team has a great night. But from a matchup perspective, there are just so many different things that you look at and you point in the direction of the caps. And that’s what happens when you’re talking about a 64 and 18 team. That’s what happens when you’re talking about a more complete, more consistent basketball team with better habits that have been built throughout the course of the regular season. So I keep looking at this and you know, Ethan, we’ve talked on this podcast, one of the prerequisites to dealing with the Cavs and, you know, being competitive with them, you better have a high octane offense, you better have a diverse offense, you better be able to win a three point shooting contest. Miami was bottom 10 in the NBA during the regular season in offense. And this just isn’t a situation where the Cavs offense is so flawed that it’s like, okay, but they’re just going to make it a defensive slugfest that’s worked in the past against The Cavs. But this offense is not last year’s offense. So it’s like if Miami is more comfortable in a lower scoring game, more of a defensive minded game, okay, that’s fine. But the defense that you have to play is against the best offense in the NBA. It’s not against the Chicago Bulls. It’s not against the Atlanta Hawks. It’s against a deep, talented, diverse Cavs offense. And I just don’t think teams are going to consistently win a low scoring game because I don’t think the Cavs offense is going to be in too many of those low scoring games the way that it was in the past.

Ethan Sands: And Chris, you mentioned the highest scoring offense of the Cleveland Cavaliers and having to maintain that as the opposition. I mean, Davion Mitchell had four threes tonight. I don’t know if you can count on him to have that for the Miami Heat. Right. I just looked at his game log. It looks like there’s eight games this season during the regular season where he had three or more triples. So I think you have to take these things into account. Right. We Talked about the 16 three pointers that the Miami Heat made tonight against Atlanta. Nine of those came from Tyler Herro and. And Davion Mitchell. Tyler Herro, we already know it’s either Bam Adebayo or Tyler Herro is at the top of the Cavs counting report going into this series. And then Davion Mitchell, we don’t know how many minutes he’s going to get because in the games that the Cavs have played against Davion Mitchell this season, he’s gotten played off the court quite honestly. So it could be a situation where the talent level that the Cavs have is just too overwhelming to have a guy like Davion Mitchell on the floor. Sure. If Davion Mitchell comes out and plays the way that he did tonight for all 4, 5, 6 games of this series. Right. But that is super unrealistic and that’s just me being extremely honest about the situation. The other portion that I wanted to mention that you talked about was going big, going small, going to Evan Mobley as the soul man. Five, I think if Eric Spoelscher goes to Bam Ad bio as the lone big man on the floor. I think the Cavs are excited about it because they pull him out to the perimeter and you give more space to the, to the guards to work. And now with Evan Mobley being able to shoot out there, he’s more of a threat. Obviously he still has to prove that in the Playoffs, but also on the defensive end. Evan Mobley during the regular season, three games, 15 minutes of matchup data, he held him to 7 of 16 from the field, 43.8%, which is decent because he made only one three pointer and took three.

Chris Fedor: So.

Ethan Sands: So all of these baskets were coming either at the rim or in the mid range and you’re talking about Evan Mobley being able to stifle him in that positioning. I think that’s extremely important to note when it comes to how Evan Mobley is a deterrent in the interior on that end of the floor, especially with how Bam has been operating in the playoffs and how he’s been shooting the basketball as well. So I think it’s just again, as we’ve been saying about positive and advantage Cavs going into the series and they have the things already in set that they can go to. And I also think them having coaches who have been looking at game film, looking at matchups throughout the entire season on teams like the Miami Heat, you get a better sense of what they need to be prepared for, what they’re ready for. But Chris, I know we have articles coming out on Saturday about what we think is going to happen in this series. Obviously, we’ll probably wait to drop those until after we talk to the Cavs on Saturday afternoon, but I want to give the fans who are still listening to this podcast a little bit of a preview. I’ve said this. I’m going to stand on this. The Cleveland Cavaliers are going to win the series in five. Where do you see it going?

Chris Fedor: Yeah, I think Cavs in five, too. I think I just have a healthy respect for Miami that it’s hard for me to predict a sweep. And I think, you know, that’s something that’s going to benefit the Cavs as well, as you mentioned, because, you know, Miami is the kind of team that’s going to have Cleveland’s attention in a way that Atlanta wouldn’t. And if you think about the second half of the season and the lack of focus for the Cavs and the slippage for the Cavs and the whole just get me to the playoffs type thing, now they’re here and now they have to crank it back up and it’s hard to do that. Right, right. But when you have a team that you’re playing against that has your attention, those things come a little bit more naturally. They come a little bit easier. So I just have more respect for Miami than to predict a sweep. I think the Cavs are clearly the better team in the series. I think they’re the more complete team in the series. I think they’ve got more high end talent than Miami does. And you were talking about Bam, and this is no disrespect to Bam. Bam is really, really good and he’s really important to the success of Miami at both ends of the floor. But he’s not the stylistic big man that has given Jared Allen and Evan Mobley problems. There are different guys in the NBA that are problematic for the Cavs when it comes to rebounding, when it comes to punishing them, when it comes to just being beefy and physical and moving them off of their space and making them uncomfortable and all those different things. It’s not Bam. It’s guys like Zubots. It’s guys like, you know, Domas Sabonis. It’s guys like Kristaps Porzingis. So this isn’t to say that Bam’s going to have a bad series or this isn’t to say that Bam’s not going to have moments throughout the series where he attacks Jared Allen or he attacks Evan Mobley or He finishes with 20 points and 15 rebounds or something along those lines. But, you know, it’s just not the same kinds of problems caused by him as some of these other guys. But in saying all of that, you know, they have Tyler Herro, they have Bam Adebayo, they have Eric Spoelstra, they do have Andrew Wiggins, who can have big nights, especially against a team like the Cavs. So I’ll say that Miami finds a way to get one of those in. In Miami, it might be the quick Turnaround game, the 1:00 afternoon game in Miami, or maybe it’s game four. It’s very hard to close out a series, especially on the road. So maybe Miami finds a way back against the wall. All the pressure on the Cavs, you know, in front of their home fans for maybe the last time all year, and Miami finds a way to get, to get game four. But I don’t expect it to go any further than five. I’d be surprised if it goes six.

Ethan Sands: Yeah, Chris. I have the Cavs losing game three when they get to Miami, their. Their first kind of change of scenery and not being with their home fans, and then they lock back in for game four. So that’s probably the only difference that I have in that. But I also. We were mentioning the matchup between Bam and Evan Mobley, and I want to end with this, right, the statistics when it comes to the matchup data with Evan Mobley, as the offensive player and Bam Adebayo as a defensive player. Bam has matched up with Evan for around 11 and a half minutes of matchup data per NBA.com and Evan is 6 of 11 from the field, 54.5% from the field, and he’s only taken two threes. So still being able to get into the body of Bam, I think that is a testament to exactly what you were talking about, Chris. This is a matchup where Evan Mobley feels like he can go into the chest. He’s not that much smaller than Bam Adebayo when it comes to strength wise. He feels like he can attack the basket and be dominant in that fashion. But I also think just the threat of him pulling Bam out of the paint, especially if he’s the lone big man, is something that Kenny Atkinson and the Cavs will look to exploit if Air Exposure ends up deciding to go with that. Because again, as we were saying, the Cavs can go to two bigs better than the Miami Heat can. So I think that covers all of our bases. Cavs in five and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun to just be in Rocket arena on Sunday for the first playoff game. All the stuff that’s going to go on during the game, around the game. The city has already started putting up all of the things around for them to celebrate, just the playoffs being in town, and I think that’s the biggest portion of it. Again, the storytelling aspect, the people person aspect. You get to see how excited the people who have lived here their whole lives get to be about a team that has been just as good, if not better in some areas as the last time the Cavs won a championship. But with all that being said, that’ll wrap up today’s episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast. But remember to become a Cavs insider and interact with Chris, me and Jimmy by subscribing to Subtext. If you want to be like anew and get your questions answered on the podcast and get a shout out as well, this is where you can have your voice heard, your questions answered by subscribing to Subtext. So sign up for a 14 day free trial or visit cleveland.comcavs and click on the blue bar at the top of the page. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. All you have to do is text the word stop. It’s easy, but we can tell you that the people who sign up stick around because this is the best way to get insider coverage on the Cavs from me, Chris and Jimmy. This isn’t just our podcast. It’s your podcast. And the only way to have your voice heard is through some text. Y’all safe. We out.

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