Cavs waive C Sanders, plan to sign Tavares

The Indiana Pacers will play the Cleveland Cavaliers in one of the NBA Playoffs First Round games on Saturday, star time at 3:00 PM ET, at Quickent Loans Arena. The one time his team did get the No. 1 seed during that stretch was also the lone time his season ended with a championship, which was a year ago when the Cavaliers rallied back from a 3-1 deficit to stun the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.

The Vertical's Shams Charania reports the team will waive seldom-used centre Larry Sanders and sign centre Edy Tavares to a multi-year deal.

The Cleveland Cavaliers didn't exactly enter the playoffs on a high note this year, losing their last four regular-season games in disappointing fashion.

November 16: Without LeBron James and J.R. Smith, the Cavs fall, 103-93, in Indiana; Kevin Love finished with 27 points and 16 boards and Kyrie added 20 points and seven helpers, but C.J. Miles keyed a late run that iced the win.

The Cleveland Cavaliers, still alive for the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference for the NBA Playoffs, meet the Toronto Raptors in the regular-season finale on Wednesday, April 12, 2017.

On the season, the Pacers are averaging 105.1 points, 42.0 rebounds and 22.5 assists per game.

Here's the bad news: Cavaliers players took multiple games for rest throughout the season in hopes that the rest would allow for healing would result in eventual peak performance. Both Paul George and LeBron James put on a show, James had 41 points and George just edged out LeBron with 43. Make of this what you will, but the deadline to sign anyone that can be eligible to play in the postseason is Wednesday, so Cleveland making these two last minute moves definitely raises some eyebrows.

The game looked more like a preseason exhibition than a matchup between two of the league's top teams. "We're focused on ourselves and the Milwaukee Bucks".

Are the Cavaliers' woes serious or just a championship hangover to start the playoffs? "He nearly views me as an inspiration by coming back, really, and I've leaned on him to get back to this level".

"To a huge degree, if there's fault associated with our regular season, it's mine because we're signing our 21st and 22nd players right now", Griffin said. Maybe this is the reason why he is confident heading into the first round where they will take on the No. 8 team in the East, the Indiana Pacers.

"Paul George is a great player but he made some tough shots", Lue said. He also played in one game for the Atlanta Hawks earlier this season. You can't ever say that about any team with LeBron James.

Cavaliers: James averaged 26.4 points, 8.6 rebounds and a career-high 8.7 assists. Where the Cavs struggle is maintaining the effort for 48 minutes in games that, to them, don't matter. "If we do that, get our fans involved, get the city really behind us again, I think it could be (as good as 2016)".