Get out your maple syrup, ladies and germs, because it's finally time for the real playoffs to begin! As we're about to see, the Magic are actually a bona fide elite team. So while the Cavs are still the favorites, this series is unlikely to be a walk in the cake... the pan-cake (boom)!

Let's go straight to the four factors:

When the Cavs are on offense

As a reminder, the Cavs finished the regular season with an Offensive Efficiency of 112.4, ranking them 4th in the NBA. Orlando, however, has the best defense in the league. That's right: the Magic—not the Cavaliers—have the NBA's best defense. Of course, most people will tell you what they hear on TV before every single Cavs game—that the Cavs rank #1, having given up the fewest points per game (91.4). The Magic defense, in fact, allowed just the 6th-fewest points per game (94.4). But the Cavs play the 6th-slowest-paced games in the NBA (88.7 possessions per game) whereas the Magic play the 12th-fastest (92.3). This seemingly minor discrepancy allows Orlando's opponents to have more scoring opportunities, in a given game, than Cavs opponents get. What we actually want to know is how likely each team's opponents are to score on a given possession. On that count, while the Cavs defense ranks 3rd (102.4), Orlando ranks #1 with a Defensive Efficiency of just 101.9.

1. Shooting

             eFG%    NBA rank
   Cavs      .519        4
   Magic     .465        1

   There are only four defenses that contest shots as efficiently as the Cavs offense makes them, and one of those four is the Cavs' own defense. Unfortunately, Orlando ranks #1 in eFG% allowed—and it's not just Dwight Howard making that happen. The Magic rank #2 in 3-point percentage allowed (.342). And according to 82games.com's shot selection data, they rank 3rd in eFG% allowed on shots classified as "jump" (.424). Of course, Howard does a pretty good job preventing inside shots, too, as the Magic rank 2nd in eFG% allowed on "close" shots (.515) and 2nd in eFG% allowed on "tip-ins" (.385).
   
   
2. Turnovers

              TO%    NBA rank
   Cavs      .125        6
   Magic     .123       26

   This is the one area where the Cavs hold a clear advantage, as Orlando doesn't seem too interested in forcing turnovers. That's great, because the Cavs take pains not to commit them. The Cavs will get shots off on almost all their possessions; the real issue is that they may not be the highest-percentage shots. Notably, a defense that doesn't force turnovers—but does do a great job contesting shots—can expect to see a hell of a lot of missed shots, i.e., defensive rebounding opportunities, which brings us to factor #3...
   
   
3. Rebounding

            OReb%    NBA rank
   Cavs      .277       12
   Magic     .241        2

   Alas, the Magic defense is quite excellent at hauling in those many, many missed shots. Their top defensive rebounders are Dwight Howard (29.5 DReb%, to rank 2nd in the NBA) and his backup, Marcin Gortat (26.3%), who shouldn't be written off (we'll talk more about him later on). After those two, there's a huge drop-off to the next tier of Tony Battie (17.0%) and (especially) starting forwards Hedo Turkoglu (14.2%) and Rashard Lewis (13.9%). It's clear the Magic are getting their defensive boards from the center position alone, but that seems to be enough to make them extremely effective.
   
   
4. Getting to the foul line & foul shooting

           FTA/FGA   NBA rank     FT%    NBA rank
   Cavs      .312       12       .757       21
   Magic     .277        6         --       --

   Once again, the Magic have the edge, as they do a great job keeping their opponents off the line. Getting Howard into foul trouble would be an incredible coup, but it's not going to be easy. Howard commits just 3.4 fouls per 36 minutes, which ranks him well below most centers in the NBA, including all of the big men on the Cavs' roster. Conveniently, 36 minutes is about the amount of playing time Howard averaged this season, so 3.4 fouls is more or less his per-game average. Still, I'd like to see LeBron attack Howard inside, early and often, and see what happens.

One thing is clear: the Cavs offense is not going to be able to do whatever it wants, at will, as was the case (comically, at times) against Atlanta. In fact, they'll have as tough a time scoring points against Orlando as against anyone else. Dwight Howard deserved his Defensive Player of the Year award, indeed: he ranked 1st in the NBA in both D-Rating (95) and Defensive Win Shares (7.6).

When the Cavs are on defense

You'll recall that the Cavs defense finished the regular season ranked 3rd in Efficiency (102.4). The Orlando offense, meanwhile, ranks 11th, having scored 109.2 points per 100 possessions.

1. Shooting

             eFG%    NBA rank
   Magic     .520        3
   Cavs      .468        2

   The Magic are an excellent shooting team, though not quite at the shot-contesting level of the Cavs defense (the league eFG% is .500, so the Cavs defense is .032 better than average, whereas the Magic offense is only .020 better). The Magic have attempted and made the 2nd-most 3-point shots in the NBA, but they rank just 7th in 3-point percentage. That in mind, we might expect Orlando's most efficient scoring to come from inside. The team eFG% leader is actually the departed Jameer Nelson (.580), but after that, sure enough, it's Howard (.572) and Gortat (also .572).
   
   
2. Turnovers

              TO%    NBA rank
   Magic     .134       19
   Cavs      .135       10

   The Magic are below average when it comes to turnovers. Their worst offenders are reserve guard Anthony Johnson (16.4 TO%), Howard (15.1%), and Turkoglu (14.6%). The Cavs have another advantage here.
   
   
3. Rebounding

            OReb%    NBA rank
   Magic     .240       29
   Cavs      .254        9

   To my shock, the Magic are the 2nd-worst offensive rebounding team in the NBA. I say shock because, as was the case on the defensive glass, Howard (13.8 OReb%, to rank 3rd in the NBA) and Gortat (even better, at 14.1%, though without enough minutes to qualify for a league ranking) are as good as it gets. But just like on the defensive end, the rest of the team is just not doing its fair share of rebounding (no one else cracks 9.0%; only third-string center Battie, at 8.9%, cracks 3.8%—which is just pathetic). On defense, the Magic haven't suffered too badly from this imbalance, because the rest of the team's glasswork, while weak, has been existent. On the offensive end, however, the situation is dire for Orlando, as literally every single forward and guard on the team has been terribly, miserably incompetent at grabbing offensive boards. Perhaps this is by design, but if so, the team is suffering from it. This is a big advantage for the Cavs, about whose defensive rebounding prowess you already know.
   
   
4. Getting to the foul line & foul shooting

           FTA/FGA   NBA rank     FT%    NBA rank
   Magic     .351        3       .715       30
   Cavs      .294       12         --       --

   This is a great example of why I don't like to measure factor #4 by the traditional metric, FTM/FGA. The Magic are superb at getting to the line, but awful at converting their free throws into points. You might have guessed that Dwight Howard has something to do with that. In the regular season, he attempted 36.7% of Orlando's free throws (the next highest such percentage is just 17.3%, for Turkoglu). The reason for this is certainly tied up in the fact that Howard is notoriously bad at making foul shots (.594, worse even than Anderson Varejão... though not quite in Ben Wallace territory). The Cavs would be wise to employ the Hack-a-Dwight whenever doing so can prevent him from hitting a field goal. For that matter, even when Howard is on the bench, the Cavs should think about the Hack-a-Gortat, as Howard's backup is actually even worse from the line (.578). Remember, Howard and Gortat lead the team in eFG%.

The Magic will live or die by their shooting success. They're not going to get many second chances, nor are they going to get off that many shots to begin with, as the Cavs have significant advantages in both rebounding and turnovers. Unfortunately for Orlando, the Cavs are also very, very good at forcing bad shots. The Cavs defense has a decisive edge over the (admittedly decent, if one-sided) Magic offense. In fact, I'd say that edge is significantly wider than the one held by the (admittedly incredible) Magic defense over the (also somewhat incredible) Cavs offense. Point is, this will be a defensive battle... in which the Cavs should have the upper hand.

Gratuitous graphs

As I've done all pancakes long, I offer you a few more bubble graphs. The first one plots each player's O-Rating (x-axis) and D-Rating (y-axis) from the regular season (click to enlarge):



First, notice how almost all of the bubbles are on the positive side of the "league average" line. Second, it's clear that Dwight Howard is the best defensive player in the series (in the NBA, in fact) while LeBron is the best offensive player. But the scale of the graph almost makes it look like both superstars are about equally "above average." That's not the case—because the range of O-Ratings among the two teams is wider than the range of D-Ratings, the graph has been horizontally compressed. In other words, while Howard may be a better defender than LeBron, it's only by a little bit, whereas LeBron's offensive edge over Howard is significant. WAAWA! (We are all witnesses. Amen.)

Same idea now, except we're plotting Net Offensive +/- and Net Defensive +/-:



Comparing graphs #1 and 2, the broads strokes are roughly the same (unlike when we were studying the Hawks, whose plus/minus was clearly calculated on opposite day). There is one player whose bubble catches my eye, though, and that's the oft-aforementioned Marcin Gortat. Throughout this preview, I've been pointing out the ways that Gortat, of whom many of you probably had never even heard before, has been one of Orlando's most effective players. Basically, everything Howard does well, Gortat's done well, too. In fact, according to O-Rating and D-Rating, Gortat was actually more efficient than Howard in the regular season (though Howard's heavier workload and longer track record obviously keep him atop the team rankings).

Plus/minus would have us believe, however, that Gortat is actually the worst player on the Magic roster, by a huge margin. Once again, I have to wonder whether plus/minus is giving us unreliable information, or revealing serious flaws in the world of advanced NBA statistical analysis. Now, obviously, the 6'11" Gortat is Howard's backup, so the two almost never appear on the floor at the same time. That means his plus/minus will suffer from Howard's absence. But if, as I've been claiming, Gortat plays about as well as Howard, shouldn't Orlando's second team be seeing some benefit? Unfortunately, I don't have a real answer. Not having given him a second thought before, I'll definitely be watching Gortat closely in this series. Stan Van Gundy seems to have jumped on the Gortat bandwagon, too: in the regular season, Tony Battie was the primary backup center, earning 1202 minutes to Gortat's 794. But in the playoffs, Gortat is getting more than twice Battie's minutes (and the most minutes for any big man off the bench).

Speaking of the playoffs, there have been enough games now that I felt it would be okay to do a bubble graph. I only have O-Rating and D-Rating data, so here you go:



In case you didn't look closely, LeBron's O-Rating (122 in the regular season) has been 139—139!—in the postseason. And his D-Rating (99 in the regular season) has been 89 in the postseason. WAAWA!

Beyond that, the rest of the Cavs have been incredible in the playoffs, too. On Orlando's side, it's worth noting that Gortat has been their most efficient player in the postseason, just as in the regular season.

Well, there you have it. Finally, a real test for the Cavaliers. While I can't be the only fan who's entertained a fantasy or two about the Cavs sweeping their way to the NBA Finals, the odds of beating the Magic four straight times are remote (Edit: Neil Paine at Basketball-Reference.com gives about a 16.8% chance of a Cleveland sweep). It's not even a foregone conclusion that the Cavs will win the series (though the odds of that are still pretty good, I have to admit; Edit: Paine pegs the Cavs' chances of winning the series at 82.1%). Now let's tip off already!