TWO-AND-A-HALF months ago, the Cleveland Cavaliers were teetering.
They had just lost their third straight game to fall to 13-12, falling to ninth place in the Eastern Conference, and just had All-Star guard Darius Garland collide face-first with Kristaps Porzingis' hip, leaving the floor general with a fractured jaw.
In the same news release in which the team announced Garland would miss four weeks, the Cavs also declared Evan Mobley, who finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting last season, would miss six to eight weeks to undergo arthroscopic surgery on his left knee.
The sky was falling in dreary Northeast Ohio.
Or so it seemed.
In their next game, against Atlanta, the shorthanded Cavs logged 41 points in the first quarter -- the most J.B. Bickerstaff's team had scored in a period all season -- en route to a eight-point win over the Hawks.
They've barely lost since.
The Cavaliers, with an NBA-best 23-5 mark from Dec. 15 to the All-Star Game, have scaled seven spots over the past 2½ months to sit in second place in the Eastern Conference heading into the weekend.
All of which raises two fundamental questions -- both of which could shift the balance of power in the East.
How? And, perhaps more important, is it real?