Cavaliers at Bucks
The Cleveland Cavaliers are on the verge of locking up the Central Division and the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. The Cavaliers will try to take a step closer to that goal when they visit the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday.
Cleveland has won three straight and sits four games in front of the Chicago Bulls with five to play. “I’ve never played “seeding” basketball, that’s just not how I’m programmed over the course of my career,” Cavaliers forward LeBron James told reporters. “I’ve just gone out and played as hard as I can, tried to lead my guys and if we’re fortunate enough to be 1, 2, 3, whatever the case may be, then we’ve put ourselves in a position if we’ve followed our process to win in the postseason.” The Bucks are trying to lock up their own postseason spot and sit sixth in the East, two games ahead of seventh-place Brooklyn. Milwaukee is trying to avoid that No. 7 slot and a first-round date with Cleveland.
TV: 8 p.m. ET, FSN Ohio (Cleveland), FSN Wisconsin (Milwaukee)
ABOUT THE CAVALIERS (50-27): James posted his first triple-double of the season with 20 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds in a 99-94 win over Chicago on Sunday that gave Cleveland the head-to-head tiebreaker between the teams. “We’ve been playing some really good ball,” James told reporters. “We still make some young team mistakes, hopefully we can get past those very soon. The way we’ve been playing ball for the last two months has been a thing of positive and we can go off of that.” The Cavaliers are playing one of their final two road games and posted a 108-90 win in their last trip to Milwaukee on Mar. 22.
ABOUT THE BUCKS (38-39): Milwaukee put together back-to-back impressive wins over Chicago and Boston but suffered a letdown at home with a 97-90 loss to Orlando on Saturday. "I thought that was a tough loss for us,” Bucks point guard Michael Carter-Williams told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I think we really needed that one. Now we've just got to go out and get one we're not supposed to.” Milwaukee still controls its own destiny as far as seeding goes with home games still remaining against Brooklyn and Boston as well as road trips to lowly New York and Philadelphia.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. The Cavaliers have taken two of the three meetings this season after splitting the four games in 2013-14.
2. Milwaukee G O.J. Mayo is 20-of-32 from the field over the last three games.
3. Cleveland G J.R. Smith went 8-of-17 from 3-point range on Sunday and has attempted at least seven 3-pointers in each of the last six games.