Time to wake up, Cavalier fans. Dust yourselves off from that ugly performance last night in Milwaukee and get back to business. Games like last night won't happen very often with this team, so we just have to write it off as an abnormality.
Today, we have one game to keep our eyes on. It involves the two teams closest to us in the race for top billing in the NBA.
L.A. Lakers at Orlando, 2:30pm EST - The winner will draw a half-game closer to the Cavaliers, the loser will fall (most likely) far enough back to begin setting their sights on the #2 slot. The only question is....which team should we silently cheer for?
If Orlando wins, they'll be 5 games back of us and fired up for the stretch run. The Lakers will still be three games behind us (minus the tiebreaker to the Cavs) and will have missed a golden opportunity to gain some ground on Cleveland, as well as keep a small amount of distance between themselves and the surging Dallas Mavericks (3.5 games currently separate the Mavs from the Lake Show).
If the Lakers win, they'll shrink our lead down to two games (minus the tiebreaker), and Orlando will fall back to six games behind us. L.A. will also push their West lead to four games over Dallas, five over Denver and 6 over Utah.
By the end of the game today, one of these teams will still be in the hunt for home court advantage throughout. The other will probably be looking at too much ground to make up in an 18-game stretch.
Which one do YOU want to see draw closer, and which one should fall out?