LeBron’s Cavaliers remain the team to beat

MIAMI — It only looks like parity. Consider it an April tradition: A new post-season, a new No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. This time, it’s Toronto doing the honours — the Raptors’ win over Indiana on Friday makes them the seventh different club in the past seven years to get the top line on the East bracket, following Chicago, Miami, Indiana, Atlanta, Cleveland and Boston.

It’s an unprecedented run of top-seed diversity for the NBA, at least since the league started seeding by conference in 1973.

Of course, those top seeds usually find out that finishing ahead of LeBron James in April is much easier than ousting him in May.

“Listen, it doesn’t matter to me if I’m a 6 seed, or a 3 seed, or a 2 seed, or an 8 seed,” James said. “If I come into your building for a Game 1, it will be very challenging.”

So make no mistake, the East still goes through James.

He is trying to reach the NBA Finals for the eighth consecutive season.

James’ teams are 24-2 in East series as the higher seed, 6-2 in East series as the lower seed.

And while the Raptors will be the favourites, there will be a certain amount of skepticism until someone knocks James off his perch atop the conference.

It’s been almost predetermined for the past few years, regardless of who’s seeded where, that James’ team would be the one winning the East. But this year, it might not be so simple. “You’ve got to go through whoever it is anyway,” Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said.

The Raptors are enjoying their best season in history, with a franchise-record 57 wins and counting and now knowing that the road for anyone to win the Eastern Conference title will go through Canada. But while the Raptors haven’t exactly been sprinting across the finish line, there have been some teams hitting their best stride, namely Cleveland and Philadelphia.

And when the East bracket is set, the Raptors know plenty of pundits won’t be penciling them in for a trip to the NBA Finals, even with the knowledge that Kyrie Irving — who has had some incredible playoff moments with James and Cleveland in recent years — won’t be playing for Boston in these playoffs because of knee surgery.

“We really just have to maintain focus on ourselves and not worry about who says this, that, what happens,” Toronto guard Kyle Lowry said. “We just go out there and have to prove what we need to prove.”

“Until somebody beats whatever team LeBron’s playing for, it always feels like the team that he’s playing for is the team to beat in the East,” said Atlanta coach Mike Budenholzer, adding: “What he does in a playoff series is very unique.” James