The rest of the East is helping the Cavaliers make up for their bad start

On Jan. 13, the Cleveland Cavaliers were one game below .500 and sat in sixth place in the Eastern Conference standings. David Blatt's seat was definitely getting warmer. Then he famously took the players out bowling instead of practicing and the Cavaliers have gone 18-3 since, winning all of their home games in the process. Then, the trades they made for J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert and Timofey Mozgov worked perfectly, providing perimeter shooting and rim protection to a team desperately needing both.

The Cavaliers are now the the fourth seed in the East. They leapfrogged the Milwaukee Bucks, who were never a threat to finish in the top four, and the Washington Wizards. Obviously the Cavaliers deserve credit for taking the Wizards' spot, but their amazing run would not have mattered had Washington continued to get wins at anything resembling a normal rate. The Wizards were eight games up from Cleveland before the streak, which means they would have the same record as the Cavaliers had they won 10 of their last 21 games. Considering how they started the year, that shouldn't have been hard. Instead, Washington has gone 7-14, a record that was unthinkable not long ago.

The Hawks look like a lock for first place in the East, unless there's a catastrophic injury or two, so the Cavaliers have two other teams on their sight to surpass before the end of the regular season: the Bulls and the Raptors. Those teams have also struggled lately.

Since the Cavaliers' streak started, the Bulls have won 11 and lost nine, a bad mark compared to the rate at which they were winning earlier in the season. Now Derrick Rose will be out for the rest of the regular season and, while the Bulls seem to have the personnel to survive his absence, it's unlikely they will suddenly catch fire. On Friday they barely edged out the Timberwolves and will face the Clippers, Thunder and Spurs at some point in their next five games and are now only half a game up from Cleveland.

The Raptors are on a four-game losing streak, including an embarrassing loss Friday against the Warriors, in which they trailed by 41 points at one time. Toronto is relying more and more on isolation play despite not performing well in that area. The Raptors' two leading scorers -- Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan -- are shooting under 40 percent from the field and 30 percent from three (in DeRozan's case, way under) in the last 15 games. In a recent post-game interview, they both described themselves as "trash." That's not an encouraging sign for the Raptors' chances this season. They will get a break, schedule-wise, as they will play the league's two worst teams, the Knicks and 76ers, next. After that, however, they will face the Cavaliers, a team they have failed to defeat the last two times they've played them and is only one game back in the standings right now.

The timing of their surge and the subsequent implosion of the teams above them in the standings are paving the way for the Cavaliers to make up for all the ground they lost early in the season while they were fighting among each other and failing to operate cohesively as a unit. What at one point seemed like a potential lost season that could break up the core of Kyrie Irving, LeBron James and Kevin Love could end up with Cleveland finishing second in the East, which could be equated to a bye, since the Heat, without Chris Bosh, would be lucky to steal a game. After that, they would face one of the teams that has collapsed, which should make them prohibitive favorites to advance to the East finals.