The Cleveland Cavaliers and the Atlanta Hawks will face off in a best of seven series in the second round of the NBA playoffs starting Monday night in Cleveland.

This series is a rematch of last season’s Eastern Conference Finals, which saw the Cavs sweep the series in four games despite injuries to Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving. LeBron James averaged more than 30 points, 11 rebounds, 9 assists, and 1.5 steals per game in the series as Cleveland anticlimacticly moved on the NBA Finals in 2015.

2016 sees a healthy Cleveland Cavaliers squad (finally) up against a largely similar Atlanta Hawks team. The biggest difference between last year’s Hawks team and this year’s is the loss of DeMarre Carroll, but in his absence Kent Bazemore and Dennis Schroeder have taken on more of the scoring and defensive duties for Atlanta.

Previous Round

Atlanta made it to the second round following a tough six game series with the Boston Celtics, who had evened it up at two games apiece but fell after two straight uninspired, double-digit defeats to the Hawks. Atlanta’s big three of Paul Millsap, Jeff Teague, and Al Horford (17.1, 15.7, and 15.2 points per game this season, respectively) showed up big time. The Hawks are the masters of scoring over 100 points per game as a team, but also while somehow having no individual player score more than 17.

Cleveland comes into this series after may have been the most hotly contested four game sweep of all time over the Detroit Pistons. Stan Van Gundy’s team of young stars threw their heart and souls (and the rest of the kitchen sink) at Cleveland. Detroit made Cleveland work for it from the opening tip in game 1, with Cleveland surviving for a 106-101 win at home.

Two double-digit victories following that game seemed to be the end of it for Detroit, but game 4 came right down the wire before the Cavs clinched the series with a 100-98 victory. Detroit has a very promising young group with Marcus Morris, Tobias Harris, Andre Drummond, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Reggie Jackson, a starting five which all averaged at least 14.3 points and 3.3 rebounds per game in the series.

Why Atlanta will beat Cleveland

The Cavs are obviously one of the best teams in the NBA, but Atlanta will be hungry to avenge last year’s sweep. The Hawks are going to have to rely on everyone having a good night individually and also contributing together to team play. With Atlanta’s spread-the-ball concept on offense, they can’t just rely on a couple players having a good night. Every one on the team needs to be on, every night.

Cleveland ranks tenth in defensive ratings in the NBA, but that doesn’t mean that they haven’t had their issues. Just six weeks ago, head coach Tyronn Lue said that the Cavs need to “get back to the basics [on defense] and get back to our formation.” Atlanta will have to take advantage of a balanced attack and a deep bench to keep pushing the tempo and controlling the pace of the game to take them down.

The Cavs likely already have their sights on the winner of the Toronto Raptors-Miami Heat series in the Eastern Conference Finals. Last year’s sweep is just as fresh in their minds as it is in the minds of the Hawks players. If Cleveland underestimates how much better and deeper that team has become without DeMarre Carroll (who is averaging over 30 minutes a night in the playoffs so far despite missing nearly three quarters of the regular season), then Atlanta has a chance to take this one in six or seven games.

Why Cleveland will beat Atlanta

LeBron James is fairly objectively the best basketball player on the planet. He’s going to get you at least 20 points a night and be a triple double threat consistently night in and night out (23 pts, 9 rbs, 7 asts per game last series). Cleveland as a team is well-rested (more than a week off since sweeping the Pistons), while Atlanta is coming off a six game series, one of which went to overtime.

Kevin Love is averaging about 19 points and 12 rebounds per game on 39% three-point shooting so far in the playoffs. When he didn’t play last year, the Cavaliers swept the Hawks, so it’s hard to imagine that adding him to the lineup can be that terrible for their chances.

The truly surprising part of the Cavaliers this season: for the first time since Dwyane Wade in the 2011 NBA Finals, and for just the second time ever in LeBron’s career, someone other than James led his team in scoring in a playoff series. That someone is Kyrie Irving (27 pts, 5 asts per game), and he is shooting a scorching 47.1% from three-point range, which bests even reigning MVP Steph Curry’s mark of 45.4% during the regular season. This is a huge scoring pressure taken off LeBron James, and Irving’s ability to keep scoring at this pace could be instrumental in a Cavs series win.

In 24 hours, it's next man up. #ALLin216

Get hyped for the Eastern Conference Semifinals with #CavsTV and @KeyBank:https://t.co/Js8prOzrWB — Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) May 1, 2016

Prediction

Picking an NBA playoff series is not easy, but there is a clearly superior team here, one that was inches from a championship with a 2-1 lead in last year’s Finals before Golden State turned on the jets and clinched the title. LeBron is desperate to win one for the ‘land, and he may see that as his only way to legitimately leave Cleveland later in his career.

This Cavs team might be the best team that LeBron has played with since he started playing basketball in Cleveland, and they’re hungry to go up against this year’s legendary 73-9 Golden State Warriors team. While some teams might slip and look past their opponent, Cleveland will see this second round matchup as exactly what they need: preparation for the tougher tests ahead. Cleveland in 6.

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All statistics courtesy Basketball-Reference.com. Seriously, they’re amazing. Featured image credit: AJC.com