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In what more or less amounted to a mutual understanding of a lack of confidence in their respective players, the Los Angeles Clippers traded James Harden to the Cleveland Cavaliers on February 4th for Darius Garland and draft considerations. Of the swaps that occurred at this year’s fairly active trade deadline, this was both the biggest headline and the one with the potential to have the most impact.

Following Tuesday’s 109-94 drubbing of the New York Knicks, completed while cosplaying as the Spurrier-era Tampa Bay Bucs, the Cavs are 7-1 since trading for Harden and are 16-4 in their last twenty games. Cleveland’s play with Harden on board in every sense has shifted the balance of the East. 

Although questions remain about both of this Cavs team’s and Harden’s own playoff mindsets, there is no such querying into their talent, or what they could be if Kenny Atkinson can maximize them. Quietly at first and suddenly screaming, the Cleveland Cavaliers are announcing themselves as title contenders.

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The 2013 Stanley Cup Finals will be remembered for a variety of reasons: it was the first final in twenty years to feature at least three overtime games,  it was the first final since 1979 to feature two of the Original Six franchises and it included perhaps the most improbable Stanley Cup-winning comeback in NHL history, a 17-second burst of offense that began with the Blackhawks pulling their immovable force of a goalie, Corey Crawford, and ended with a rebounded shot from Dave Bolland.

Really, it was an alignment of all the things that make postseason hockey a seemingly different sport from regular season hockey, one which people are more willing to ingest as a result of the excitement and fervor with which each team plays its games. No one leaves anything on the ice during the playoffs, or at least that is what fans are led to believe, and when a team has already played a legendary first-round series, with a legendary game 7, it is hard to continue putting out the effort to defeat team after team in route to a championship.

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