At 3:00 Eastern on ABC, the NBA’s second season will officially be underway. It goes without saying that the Cavs are the favorites, as the Bulls snuck into the playoffs in the final days of the season. A Bulls win in Game 1, if nothing else, would inspire unrest in a Cleveland fan base that desperately wants to see the Cavs win a championship this year.
3:00 P.M.: Bulls Aim To Take Game 1 From Cavs, Make The City Of Cleveland Freak Out
Before the game, be sure to check in with our Cavs blog, Fear the Sword, and our Bulls blog, Blog A Bull.
Preview courtesy of Sports Network.
The NBA's best team during the regular season will begin its chase for the Larry O'Brien Trophy this afternoon when the Cleveland Cavaliers host the Chicago Bulls in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference quarterfinals set.
The Cavaliers resume is very impressive. Cleveland was an NBA-best 61-21 despite shutting things down a week early, and also compiled the top home record at 35-6 as well as the second best road mark (26-15).
In the process, the Cavs became the first team since the Chicago Bulls of 1995-96 and 1996-97, and only the fifth team in the last 19 seasons to finish with sole possession of the NBA's best regular season mark in consecutive years. Cleveland also became only the ninth different franchise in NBA history to have back-to-back 60 win seasons.
Records and little things like division or conference championships now mean very little to a Cavaliers club obsessed with the NBA championship, however. Anything less than an NBA title will mean the season has been a failure in Cleveland.
"We got through it," Cleveland head coach Mike Brown said after the team's regular season finale. "Everyone's healthy. Now we can look forward to the playoffs. We know who we're going to play and I think our players understand what's at stake here and they'll be ready."
The Cavs kick off their quest against an eighth-seeded Bulls club that has, in essence, been playing playoff basketball for the last two weeks.
While Cleveland was resting players like James, Mo Williams and Antawn Jamison and dropping four straight games to end the regular season, Chicago was fighting for its postseason life, winning its final three games to vault over Toronto and sneak into the postseason despite a pedestrian .500 record (41-41) and some significant turmoil in the front office.
Bulls general manager Gar Forman recently acknowledged a confrontation between head coach Vinny Del Negro and vice president of basketball operations John Paxson back in March.
While not identifying Paxson by name, Forman said the disagreement was “the result of each expressing their passion about the health and well being of their players and the desire to win basketball games.”
Paxson reportedly shoved Del Negro twice in the chest and had to be restrained in a post-game confrontation after a loss to Phoenix on March 30. The argument stemmed from Del Negro breaching a management-imposed limit on the minutes of young center Joakim Noah, who was struggling with an injured left foot.
Chicago and Cleveland split a four-game regular season series this year but the last Bulls win came when the Cavs had shut it down and were resting James.
Since the NBA changed its playoff format in 1984, there have only been three occasions when a No. 8 seed has shocked a No. 1 and its only happened once in the Eastern Conference when Miami stunned New York in a five-game set back in 1999. The last time an eight topped a No. 1 was in 2007 when Golden State upended Dallas in 2007.
“My team will sacrifice everything they’ve got in order to make it to this stage,” Noah said. “We’re going to try to shock the world.”
These two Central Division rivals were regular postseason opponents during the Michael Jordan-era with the Bulls taking five straight series between 1987-88 and 1993-94.
In last year's opening round, the Bulls took advantage of a knee injury to Boston's Kevin Garnett and stretched the then-defending champion Celtics to a Game 7 before falling.
The Cavs, meanwhile, swept Detroit and Atlanta in last year's playoffs before falling in six games to the Orlando Magic in the East finals.
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