The mantra of the past several years of Cleveland Cavaliers basketball has been some semblance of "wait til the playoffs." This year has been a wild ride, but none of it really mattered until now. The playoffs are finally here.

For the second straight year, the Cavs will face off against the Indiana Pacers in round one of the NBA playoffs. This year will look quite a bit different, however, as Cleveland no longer has three of their top five scorers (Irving, Deron Williams, and Channing Frye) from that series and Indiana no longer has their top two (Paul George and Jeff Teague). Despite the changes, Indiana may be better than last year, finishing at 48-34 instead of the 42-40 they had with Paul George at the helm. Victor Oladipo is the guy to thank for that, and he's been excellent.

But this is about the Cavs.

Season Series

The Pacers won the season series, but it's hard to know how much to read into that with all the changes that the Cavaliers went through. While the first Pacers win was early in the year (Derrick Rose was Cleveland's starting PG at the time), the 2nd Pacers win was Cleveland's lone loss in a 20 game stretch - i.e. the Cavs were hot and the Pacers cooled them off.

Cleveland did win the final matchup between the two teams, but all four games were before the Isaiah Thomas trade, so there isn't a whole lot to glean from the season series.

Quick Scouting

Cleveland

The Cavs are still favorites to win the conference, thanks almost entirely to LeBron James. While the season was (once again) a roller coaster, the Cavaliers went 10-3 down the stretch (punting on the final loss) when they were beginning to get comfortable playing together. Their defense has been atrocious, finishing the regular season with the 29th ranked DRtg (points allowed per 100 possessions) in the NBA, per Basketball-Reference.com. It has been better with certain lineups, but the Cavaliers need to be smart about those lineups.

Since February 20, there have been 30 lineups to play more than 10 minutes for the Cavaliers. 12 of those lineups were equal to or better defensively than their season-long average. Larry Nance, Jr. was on nine of them. He was only on five of the rest of the lineups.

Ty Lue knows this kind of information, so the Cavaliers should look a bit better.

Offensively, Cleveland has the ability to blow out anybody. They had BR's 5th best ORtg but nobody would be surprised to see them drop 125 in any given game. The Cavs are lethal when clicking on offense.

Indiana

This is a spunky team. Victor Oladipo is almost certainly going to win Most Improved Player, his teammate Domantas Sabonis could finish in the top-5 as well, and a healthy Myles Turner is liable to have a big game here and there. The Pacers had a slightly above average team, finishing 11th in ORtg and 13th in DRtg. 

However, it's abundantly clear that this team will only go as far as Victor Oladipo can take them. Oladipo had a 33/8/5 and a 25/6/7 game vs. Cleveland, and while the Cavs tended to let other guys beat them (letting Lance Stephenson get 16/11/4 stung a bit), Oladipo is the engine.

Keys to Victory

1) The Cavs need their non-LeBron guys

There are still some lingering injuries on Cleveland's roster, but it shouldn't be too big of a deal. Hood, Korver, and Love were all out for the season finale, but Ty Lue seems confident in his 10-man rotation, so they're likely just fine. The 10-man rotation means Clarkson, Calderon, and Green will all get minutes and it seems as though Cedi Osman and Tristan Thompson will be left out. 

I am very surprised to see that Tristan Thompson is one of the guys who will be matchup specific in the playoffs, but I guess that goes to show that I'm not the prognosticator that I thought I was.

In any case, Jeff Green will get heavy minutes in the playoffs and he'll be a major key. Hopefully, we get Good Jeff Green.

2) Can the Cavs win the center-position battle against Myles Turner?

Kevin Love is the starting center for the Cavs, which means he's going against Myles Turner. Turner is big and athletic enough to give Love lots of problems down low, but Love is also good enough to take Turner away from the paint and eliminate any rim-protection threat that he offers. I have no concerns about Larry Nance handling Turner, but the Love matchup will be an interesting one to watch - particularly because the Cavaliers have a habit of feeding Love on the block early in games.

3) Flipping the switch

At some point in the future, the Cavs are going to reach for the metaphorical switch and there will be no electricity. They'll try, but they won't always be able to do this song-and-dance of playing sloppy basketball for most of the regular season and then destroying a couple of teams en route to the Finals. However, that's probably not happening yet.

The Cavs have more talent than the Pacers, and they know it. They know that the regular season is an exercise in patience and the postseason is when they need to really commit to winning basketball games. They all know it. They all understand it. They just have to believe that their bad habits haven't sunken in too deep.

Important matchups

There are two big ones in this series for the Cavs, and the first is George Hill (or whoever they decide has this assignment) on Victor Oladipo. Indiana will try to force switches and get Love, JR Smith, Calderon, or Clarkson on him, and that will be the biggest test for the Cavaliers. Presumably, they'll have a plan for this type of thing. But if George Hill can stick with Oladipo, this should be a breeze for the Cavs.

The second matchup I'm interested in is Jeff Green vs. Thaddeus Young. Green is much quicker than almost any "power forward" the Cavs will go up against, and dictating size is a pretty powerful strategy for the Cavs. However, if Green can't make jumpers (historically speaking, he cannot), then Young doesn't have to guard him out there. Young should be the one with the advantage inside, so that's kind of a lot of pressure on Jeff Green.

Prediction

The Cavs are more talented, they have home-court advantage, and they have LeBron James. There just aren't enough guys on the Pacers to give too much of a fight here. Cavs in five.