The Eastern Conference’s top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers (64-18) will face the fourth-seeded Indiana Pacers (50-32) in the first round of the 2025 NBA playoffs. The two franchises have not met in the playoffs since the opening round in 2018, when the Pacers pushed prime LeBron James to a Game 7.

What we know about Cleveland

Following last season's second-round playoff exit, there were concerns about Cleveland's roster. The overlap between Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland in the backcourt and Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen in the frontcourt seemed too much to overcome. Something had to be done about redundancy.

Except nothing was. The Cavaliers instead hired Kenny Atkinson to replace J.B. Bickerstaff as head coach and told him to figure it out. Which he did. Atkinson installed a more motion-based offense. It clicked. Cleveland's 121 points per 100 possessions this year marked the NBA's best net rating by a wide margin.

We already knew what a defense backed by Mobley — this year's Defensive Player of the Year — and Allen was capable of, and they delivered on that promise, submitting the league's eighth-rated defense. The end result was 64 regular-season wins, the No. 1 seed and a net rating second only in the Eastern Conference to the defending champion Boston Celtics. The leap from pretender to contender was vast.

It helps to have Mitchell and Garland, two wonderfully creative ball-handlers, as multiple points of attack. Both can play on the ball or off of the other. Mitchell, especially, ceded control of the offense this season.

Nobody benefited from Cleveland's egalitarian brand of basketball more than Mobley, who increased his workload as both a playmaker and a floor spacer this season. Allen does the dirty work alongside him, and together they form arguably the league's best rim-protecting duo. It is quite a foursome. Each has made at least one All-Star team, and no longer are we concerned about the redundancies on the roster.

The Cavs even made a roster-bolstering trade at the deadline, adding De'Andre Hunter from the Atlanta Hawks. Hunter is the most versatile of a collection of wings that includes Max Strus, Isaac Okoro and Dean Wade, each of whom holds his own strength as a fifth man. And Cleveland's sixth man, Ty Jerome, was one of the league's best this season, bolstering a stacked (if defensively deficient) guard rotation.

Together they rattled off win streaks of 15, 12 and 16 during the regular season and made quick work of Miami in the opening round of the playoffs, outscoring the Heat by a 112-point margin in a clean sweep.

What we know about Indiana

After a surprise visit to the 2024 Eastern Conference finals, the Pacers went about the business of a 50-win season, securing a home playoff seed for the first time since a pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign.

They have Tyrese Haliburton, a supreme playmaker, at the helm of another powerhouse offense. It was not always pretty. Both he and the Pacers had their struggles in the first few months of the season, particularly on defense, as they took a 16-18 record into January. Since the turn of the calendar, though, only the Cavs and Celtics have had a better net rating than Indiana (+5.3) in the Eastern Conference.

When the dust settled, Haliburton had averaged 18.6 points (on 47/39/85 shooting splits), 9.2 assists and 3.5 rebounds in 33.6 minutes per game. It was his first full season with All-Star forward Pascal Siakam, who added a 20-7-3 on 52/39/73 shooting splits in 32.7 minutes a night. Both are on the fringes of All-NBA consideration. When playing together they yielded a net rating of +6.8 points per 100 possessions.

Throw in Myles Turner, their stalwart two-way center, and that rating improves to +8.6. From there the Pacers rotate a handful of wings: Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, Bennedict Mathurin, Obi Toppin and Ben Sheppard. All of them are credible shooting threats. None of them guard at an All-Defensive level, though Nembhard and Nesmith — Indiana's other two starters — are committed on that end.

We cannot forget T.J. McConnell, their sparkplug off the bench, either. He is energy personified.

The Pacers are deep and good, and they have been better over the final month of the season, when they finished 15-4. They carried that momentum into the first round of the playoffs, where they faced the undermanned Milwaukee Bucks, dismantling them in five games. That starting lineup of theirs — a relatively young and emerging group — outscored the Bucks by 27 points over 84 minutes in the series.

Head-to-head

The Pacers won their regular-season series with the Cavaliers, 3-1.

Throw out the last two meetings — both Pacers wins — which occurred in the final week of the regular season, when the Cavaliers were resting Mitchell, Mobley and Garland, among others. Indiana also rested Haliburton and Siakam in their regular-season finale. We should note, however, that Cleveland's bench — led by Jerome — pushed the fully healthy Pacers in what ended up being a two-point game on April 10.

We might be able to draw a little more from their earlier meetings, when the two Central Division rivals met for a home-and-home series on Jan. 12 and 14. Indiana won the first game, 108-93, behind six players in double figures and a 32-7, second-half surge that flipped a 15-point deficit into the 15-point victory. One of Indiana's players not in double figures: Haliburton, who suffered a left groin strain in the first half.

Haliburton also missed their meeting two days later, when Mitchell exploded for 35 points in a 127-117 win. Remember: This was also before the Hunter trade. In the end, Haliburton played only a single half of basketball against the Cavaliers this season, totaling two points, and the Pacers finished 3-1 against a team that lost only 18 games all year. If you want to call that an edge for Indiana, knock yourself out.

Matchup to watch

Tyrese Haliburton vs. Donovan Mitchell

The two point guards will not be each other's defensive assignment. They barely guarded one another in the regular season. Though we may see them hunt each other's weak defense some, which would be fun.

Instead this will be a contrast in styles. Haliburton is more of a playmaker, Mitchell more of a scorer. Both are sensational, bordering on superstardom. Mitchell is more seasoned. Haliburton is more inconsistent. Between his scoring and playmaking, Mitchell generated 36.7 points a game; Haliburton produced 40.7.

It will be interesting to see how each team defends the other's star point guard.

Nembhard will likely draw the Mitchell assignment for the Pacers. Nesmith is another option, though he did not face Mitchell for a single second this season. Nembhard spent nearly nine minutes on Mitchell across two games this season, holding Cleveland's leading scorer to nine points (3-8 FG, 1-3 3P). But the Cavaliers as a team scored 136.3 points per 100 possessions in those minutes. Pretty effective, but keep in mind: Nesmith also was not available in the regular season to counter Garland as a secondary creator.

Meanwhile, it is anyone's guess who defends Haliburton for the Cavaliers. Neither Mitchell nor Garland can stay in front of him. Nor will Cleveland's bigger bodies, Mobley and Allen, want to guard him in space. That leaves a collection of Strus, Okoro and Hunter. Haliburton would like his hand at Strus. Okoro did a decent job defending Haliburton last season, but he finds himself on the fringes of the playoff rotation this season. Might Atkinson prefer Hunter's length opposite Indiana's floor general? He will surely try it.

Crunch-time lineups

Cleveland Cavaliers

To nobody's surprise, Atkinson has relied on his four stars — Mitchell, Garland, Mobley and Allen — in fourth quarters (at least those that the Cavaliers did not win in blowouts). The fifth spot could go to any of Hunter, Strus, Jerome, Okoro or Wade. Hunter's combination of size, skill and athleticism makes him the most sensible of the bunch, though Atkinson trusted Strus' experience in their lone close game against the Heat in the first round. Neither lineup played a lick against Indiana in the regular season.

Indiana Pacers

In the clutch, head coach Rick Carlisle has trusted either Mathurin or Nesmith, depending on need, along with Haliburton, Siakam, Turner and Nembhard. Both units owned a double-digit net rating (in the black, of course) during the regular season, according to Cleaning the Glass. Against the Bucks in the opening round, Carlisle went with Nesmith's defense, and that quintet delivered two victories, finishing a +4 over 12 minutes. They did not play a single possession together against Cleveland during the regular season.

Prediction: Cavaliers in six

The Pacers are a problem. They will give the Cavaliers more fits than the Heat did. That is for sure. They can score in bunches. The defense? That is their weakness. I trust in the ability of Mobley and Allen to disrupt Haliburton's penetration just enough to allow Cleveland's offense to be the more explosive outfit.

Series betting odds

(Via BetMGM)

Cleveland Cavaliers (-500)

Indiana Pacers (+375)

Series schedule (all times Eastern)

Game 1: Sunday @ Cleveland (TBD)

Game 2: Tue., May 6 @ Cleveland (TBD)

Game 3: Fri., May 9 @ Indiana (TBD)

Game 4: Sun., May 11 @ Indiana (TBD)

*Game 5: Tue., May 13 @ Cleveland (TBD)

*Game 6: Thu., May 15 @ Indiana (TBD)

* Game 7: Sun., May 18 @ Cleveland (TBD)

*if necessary

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