A discouraging word

So I hear all this talk now about how it's going to be different this time between the Indiana Pacers and the Cleveland Cavaliers, how the Cavs are ripe for the taking and the young, new-look Pacers are just the team to do the taking, how LeBron is 33 now and, even though he was even more fabulous than ever this season, perhaps this is a bridge too far for him.

It's David vs. Goliath all over again, these same people say. And look how swell that turned out for the pluck little Israelite.

Know what the Blob thinks when it hears this?

It thinks a new appreciation for Goliath might be in order.

It thinks perhaps we are forgetting LeBron James is still LeBron James, and Victor Oladipo 'n' them, joyous and skilled though they may be, are not. The best player of his generation (and maybe of all time) is not going to lose to the Pacers in the first round of the playoffs. The Blob has tried that narrative on for size, and it just doesn't fit no matter how much you try to make it.

Being of a provincial nature, I would love to see the Pacers knock them off, and if you go strictly by the cold numbers it not only seems possible, it wouldn't even be a David vs. Goliath sort of deal. The Pacers did, after all, take three of four from the Cavs during the regular season. They finished just two games behind them in the standings, winning 48 games to Cleveland's 50. And it is abundantly obvious by now that this is as flawed and weak a team as LeBron's had around him since he came back to Cleveland four years ago.

And that the Pacers are much, much better than the team that got swept by the Cavs in the first round last year.

I don't think that's going to happen again.

I do think Cleveland wins anyway, because if LeBron's going to go down after the kind of season he's had, it's not going to the Pacers in the first round. Again, that narrative just doesn't seem to fit.

Let's try a for-instance, for instance. Let's say the Cavs struggle in this series and the Pacers don't, and the series goes the distance. Suddenly it's Game 7, in Cleveland. Do you really think, in your heart of hearts, that LeBron's going to let the Cavs lose a Game 7 at home in the first round? Especially when you consider it would likely be his last game in Cleveland if he did?

LeBron James is not going to lose Game 7 to the Pacers in his final game in his adopted hometown. Not going to happen. Especially given what happened the last time in Cleveland, when he was accused of tanking the series against Boston because his heart was already in Miami.

(This is, by the way, ridiculous. That last game in Boston? LeBron went for 27 points, 19 rebounds and 11 assists trying to stave off elimination. Yeah, he barely showed up.)

In any case, there's just way too much motivation for LeBron to go out in that scenario. And we all know what the man's capable of when he has sufficient motivation -- and even when he doesn't.

Sorry, David. Says here you can't beat Goliath every time.