Inexperienced Cavs Prepare For First Playoff Series In A Unique Way

The Cleveland Cavaliers used simulated crowd noise to train for NBA playoffs.

The Cleveland Cavaliers wrapped up the 82-game regular on Sunday afternoon with a loss to the Charlotte Hornets. 

However, their fate had already been decided. They would take on take on the New York Knicks with home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs and neither a win nor loss could've changed that.

The biggest critique of the Cavs this season is their lack of experience, which can't be acquired without simply living through it. With Cleveland's rawness when it comes to the big moment, they had to get creative in how to prepare.

After getting Monday and Tuesday off, the team was back in action at practice and they had an interesting sound blaring through the speaker system at Cleveland Clinic Courts. It wasn't music, but crowd noise. 

You don't have to be a player to realize that the atmosphere in a playoff game is different from a regular season game. From the matching t-shirts, the rally towels that some arenas provide, and overall a more engaged crowd, it could be a challenging environment for a player going through it for the first time. 

Thankfully, the Cavs will get to experience a friendly crowd at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse first, before heading out to New York.

This is what head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said about simulating the noise, (via Camryn Justice of News 5 Cleveland):

"We've got some stuff pumped in on the loudspeaker during our drills during some of the time when we're playing, just again to simulate that energy and how important communication is through that. There's a lot of small things that we're doing that are trying to set the stage a little bit to let them know just how important those things are."

Mimicking the playoff environment isn't easy, but it's better than doing nothing.

Fans can see if all of this preparation pays off when the Cavs open up the first round against the New York Knicks on Saturday, April 15 in downtown Cleveland.  

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