Welcome to The Lab, FiveThirtyEight’s basketball podcast. On Thursday’s show (May 10, 2018), Neil and Kyle preview both conference finals matchups. They discuss how the Celtics overcame injury after injury to make the Eastern Conference finals, revel in the Cleveland Cavaliers’ remarkable play against the Toronto Raptors, and wonder whether the Western Conference finals are […]
The Cleveland Cavaliers that swept the top-seeded Toronto Raptors out of the postseason in dominant fashion looked completely different from the Cavs team that eked out 50 wins in the regular season. And with good reason: The bulk of Cleveland’s postseason minutes have gone to, quite literally, a different team. Through the first two rounds […]
Just when the Toronto Raptors finally looked like they’d exorcised their playoff demons against the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Cavs once again found a way to haunt them. Despite not leading for a single second during regulation time, LeBron James and the Cavaliers beat Toronto 113-112 in overtime of Tuesday night’s Eastern Conference semifinal Game 1, […]
It took seven back-and-forth games, but the NBA’s most perplexing team will continue to confuse observers — and statistical models — for at least one more round. The Cleveland Cavaliers ensured that by beating the Indiana Pacers 105-101 in Sunday’s Eastern Conference quarterfinal finale, earning LeBron James a trip to the second round for the […]
Welcome to The Lab, FiveThirtyEight’s basketball podcast. On Monday’s show (April 16, 2018), Neil, Kyle and Chris recap the first games of the NBA playoffs. They focus on the weekend’s big storylines: The Pacers trounced the Cavs in Cleveland, the Blazers had no answer for Anthony Davis, and the Sixers looked like real contenders. Here […]