How dramatic is Cavaliers’ experience advantage over Raptors?

On Sunday, the Cleveland Cavaliers wrapped up the regular season with a comfortable home win over the Washington Wizards, and later on in the day, they found out they would be playing the Toronto Raptors in the first round of the playoffs beginning next weekend. For much of the day, it appeared that it would instead be the Atlanta Hawks as Cleveland’s opponent, but that changed when the Boston Celtics’ backups upset the Orlando Magic.

The Cavaliers are heavy favorites coming into their series against Toronto, and they also have a decisive edge in playoff experience over their foes from north of the border.

“James Harden has nearly 3x as much playoff experience (173 games, 15 series wins) as the entire Raptors 9-man rotation,” reported Josh Lewenberg of TSX on X, formerly Twitter.

Lewenberg also noted that the Cavs’ starters have played in 302 playoff games (23 series wins), compared to just 65 and four series wins for Toronto.

The Cavs have assimilated well after adding Harden in a surprising deal with the Los Angeles Clippers at the NBA trade deadline, sending out Darius Garland in return. While bringing in Harden to improve one’s chances of playoff success might seem a bit counterintuitive, the Beard does figure to give the Cavs more offensive stability when Donovan Mitchell is on the bench, as well as the hefty experience outlined above.

Meanwhile, Toronto has been a solid team all year, but they have struggled mightily against upper echelon teams, giving the Cavs plenty of confidence heading into this series.

Game 1 between the Cavs and Raptors is set for Saturday afternoon at 1:00 pm ET in Cleveland.

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