The Cleveland Cavaliers are entering the 2026 NBA Playoffs with a chip on their shoulders. Before they can prove anything of substance and go the distance, they need to take care of business as the heavy favorites in their first-round series with the Toronto Raptors.
Here are three keys to making sure that happens. All stats are via Cleaning the Glass.
1. Control the Pace
The Cavs have a talent advantage in this series. But talent can only get you so far. Winning on the margins is often what determines outcomes. If you lose
the mini-battles, you lose the series.
For Cleveland, losing control of the pace would be the quickest path to destruction.
Toronto finished the regular season 3rd in transition frequency. They scored over 20 points per game off fastbreaks. They also generated the fourth most turnovers in the league. These transition opportunities are huge for a team that finished 13th in offensive efficiency.
In short, this series favors the Cavs if they can keep this game in the halfcourt. How do you achieve that?
Taking care of the ball is the first step. Cleveland finished the season 8th in turnover percentage and was even better (6th) in the two months after acquiring James Harden. This will be key as the Cavs ranked 11th in transition defense post All-Star break, but struggled heavily in scenarios created off turnovers, finishing 20th off steals.
Then there’s the double-edged sword of attacking the offensive glass. On one hand, offensive rebounds can wear a team down and slow things significantly. On the other hand, coming up short on an offensive board will leave your transition defense more vulnerable. The Cavs have to play this carefully.
The Raptors finished 1st in transition frequency off live rebounds. However, they ranked 19th in keeping opponents off the offensive glass. Cleveland was 11th in offensive rebounding percentage. There’s an opportunity for the Cavs to burn or get burned here. I’ll be interested to see how they approach this.
Either way, a slower pace benefits Cleveland. Expect the Cavs to make this their top priority in round one.
2. Trust the Math
There isn’t much in the world that everyone can agree on. We can, however, agree that three is greater than two, right?
If my math is correct, then the Cavs once again have an advantage.
The Raptors finished 25th in three-point frequency and 18th in accuracy this season. They are… not a great perimeter team. Aside from scoring in transition, the Raps primarily made up for their lack of shooting by attacking the paint (9th in rim frequency) and mid-range (6th in mid-range frequency).
This is exactly the type of style that Cleveland’s defense prefers to go against.
The Cavs have always worked to run opponents off the line and force them to score from the middle of the floor. Difficult, inefficient two-pointers are preferable to three-point jumpers. This has been the basis of Cleveland being an elite defense in years past. It will be their blueprint for round one, too.
Brandon Ingram and Scottie Barnes will try their best to beat Cleveland from the mid-range. They’ll likely even have a game or two where they are red-hot from that zone. But this is a gamble the Cavs are willing to accept. The math says that Toronto will have a hard time winning four out of seven games by scoring in the mid-range.
The Cavs will trust that even the most prolific scoring performance from the mid-range will be something they can overcome with their own three-point shooting. Let’s talk more about that in our next section.
3. Score, Score, Score
I can’t blame anyone who might feel hesitant to trust Cleveland’s defense. After all, we spent most of the regular season watching them either be banged up or struggling to play with consistent effort. I’ll grant you that concern.
But this team should pack a strong enough punch offensively to make everything else in this series moot.
Lineups featuring James Harden had an offensive rating of 120.9 (87th percentile). Add Donovan Mitchell next to him, and those lineups had a scorching 125.7 offensive rating (98th percentile). You’re banking on that being enough to overcome anything in this first round, even a top-10 defense.
For reference, the Cavs ranked sixth in offensive rating against top-10 opponents after the All-Star break. The Raps ranked 21st.
The problem-solving capabilities of Harden and Mitchell make this possible. They can punish you in isolation, through their pick-and-roll dynamism with Allen and Mobley, or by spraying the ball to any of Cleveland’s various three-point specialists. They have a solution to anything a defense can throw at them.
And while we know that the guards can fill it up, the potential for either Mobley or Allen to control the paint is just as dangerous. These two hit their stride in the back half of the season and will put a heavy strain on Toronto’s frontcourt to keep them from racking up dunks.
Finally, X-Factors like Sam Merrill, Jaylon Tyson, Keon Ellis, and Max Strus can swing the entire series with their three-point shooting. Either one of them can heat up in a hurry and deliver a game-ending run.
All in all, the Cavalier offense has all of the tools needed to be an extinction-level threat to the Raptors. This is their greatest advantage in round one.
