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Healthy LeBron, improved D make Cavaliers clear East favorites

David Richard / USA TODAY Sports

We should've seen this coming.

Despite all the doomsday talk emanating from Ohio nearly two months ago - with the Cleveland Cavaliers sitting at 19-20 following a loss in LeBron James' return to the lineup after an eight-game absence - we should have known better.

Through 39 games, the preseason championship favorites were a losing team coming off a six-game losing streak and nine losses in 10 games, while boasting a porous, 26th-ranked defense that allowed more than 106 points per 100 possesions.

To make matters worse, James was ailing.

Cleveland sat sixth in the lowly Eastern Conference, trailing even the upstart Milwaukee Bucks, and found themselves seven games behind the Central Division-leading Chicago Bulls.

Talk of 50 wins, let alone a title, seemed laughable.

But even at that point, one encouraging sign remained. The Cavs were 18-12 with James in the lineup, a record that would translate to a 49-win pace - not exactly championship-level, but still a heck of a lot better than their overall record indicated.

The team's performance since then - boosted by the additions of Timofey Mozgov, Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith, as well as the return of King James - has been nothing short of spectacular.

Thanks to 18 wins in 20 games, the Cavs now sit at  37-22, needing only a 13-10 record the rest of the way to reach 50 wins. They've climbed to third-place in the East, are within a game of the second-place Toronto Raptors, and lead the Bulls by a half-game in the Central.

They earned a convincing win over the league-leading Golden State Warriors on Thursday, and their 35-14 record with a healthy James would put them on a 58-win pace, a reminder of what the first half of the season was trying to tell us - the Cavs will be fine so long as James is.

With James leading the charge and Mozgov and Shumpert solidifying a more conservative defensive scheme, Cleveland is suddenly a two-way juggernaut.

They've scored a league-best 112.3 points per 100 possessions since James' return to the lineup on Jan. 13 (for comparison, the best offensive rating in the NBA.com system - dating back to 1996-97 - is 112.7 by the 2009-10 Suns) and have allowed only 98.5 points per 100 possessions in the 16 games since Shumpert debuted, which would rank second only to the Warriors' vaunted D this season.

The Atlanta Hawks are a deserving conference leader with virtually no weak links, but they're also a pedestrian 5-4 over their last nine after losing only twice in their previous 35. The Raptors are a deep team that's thrived despite the East's toughest schedule thus far, but either Toronto or Atlanta beating a James-led team - which also features two All-Star-caliber running mates - four times in a seven game series seems to be asking too much.

The Bulls, the biggest perceived East threat to Cleveland entering the season, can't do it without a healthy Derrick Rose, the Washington Wizards are free falling and the young Bucks are still far too green.

Simply put, the Cavs have transitioned from colossal failure to East favorites - again - over the last six or seven weeks, with time and the fortune of good health now the only things standing between James and a fifth consecutive Finals appearance.

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