CLEVELAND — For most of the past two weeks the Cleveland Cavaliers’ practice facility has resembled more of a playground than it did the training home of the team to beat in the 2009 playoffs.

After dashing past Atlanta to earn their second straight postseason sweep, the Cavs have had several workouts but ended the majority of their days doing the NBA equivalent of kicking rocks as they awaited their Eastern Conference finals foe.
Recess has ceased with the Orlando Magic coming to town Wednesday to try to darken their spotless 8-0 record. Some NBA watchers are still questioning if LeBron James and company are ready to don the tag of the NBA’s new dominant team.
Asked after the Magic’s Game 7 win over Boston who would represent the East, TNT analyst Charles Barkley went with Superman Dwight Howard’s cape over King James’ MVP crown.
“I think the Orlando Magic are going to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers,” Barkley said. “Look at the match-ups and I don’t think (Cleveland) can match up with Orlando’s starting unit. I think Orlando has a better bench. I look at it on paper even though I know you don’t play the game on paper.”
With a 66-16 record, Cleveland owned the regular season and was all but unbeatable at Quicken Loans Arena, losing only twice. But against the remaining three teams in the playoffs, the Cavaliers only had a winning record against Denver (2-0).
Both Los Angeles (2-0) and Orlando (2-1) won their season series with the Cavs, including the Magic handing them a season-worst 29-point loss on April 3.
“You gotta learn from it,” James said. “But like I said before, the regular season doesn’t matter. You take things from that game. But if you lose by one or by 40, it’s still the same loss.”
While it’s prompted folks like Barkley to predict the end of Cleveland and MVP James’ historic season, James said they are shrugging it off.
“That’s OK,” he said. “Whether they pick Orlando or pick the Cavs, people have their opinions. They’re fans of the game and have a right to choose who they want to choose. We still get to play.”
In each of their regular-season losses to the Magic, two things haunted the Cavs: James being forced to take contested shots and Orlando effectively utilizing the inside-out game to knock down 3-pointers on their end while spacing the floor in transition.
In the Cavs’ lone win, they were able to flip it by getting James good shots (and 43 points) and by defending the Magic shooters better, with Rashard Lewis going 0-for-8 from beyond the arc.
And it’s the defensive end that may eventually earn Cleveland that elusive dominant tag. Through two rounds, the Cavs are allowing just 78.1 points per game (ranked No. 1) and holding opponents to just 31 percent from long-range (ranks second).
“They have a great team defensive concept, and then each player has turned up their defensive mindset this year to become a good individual defender,” former NBA coach and TNT analyst Mike Fratello said.
It’s why in the time since their second-round win over Atlanta, Cleveland Coach Mike Brown said he has geared most of his film study sessions on showing his club the defensive holes that still exist.
He admitted that there was a deficit in both their transition defense and defending the Magic’s pick-and-roll during the regular season.
“We watched clips from all three games because they’ve really hammered us in transition,” Brown said. “They just didn’t do it in the third game (the 116-87 loss), they did it in the first two.”
Whether people are still qualifying what they’ve done so far during the postseason or not, Brown said he’s content to let the postseason’s end result be their judge.
“It doesn’t mean anything what we did in the regular season or what we did in the first two rounds,” Brown said. “We have to come out and compete and play. It doesn’t matter what people say. We ourselves believe that we still have to work and go earn it. Nothing’s going to be given to us and nothing’s going to be given to them. . . . You still have to go out and earn wins.”