The overall playoff picture might be a little cloudy going into the final night of the 2015-16 NBA regular season but there are two matchups set in stone over in the Eastern Conference. The second seed Toronto Raptors will host the seventh seed Indiana Pacers and the number one seed Cleveland Cavaliers will be hosting the eighth seeded Detroit Pistons in a first round matchup.
We are far from the days of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons rivalry in the mid-2000’s featuring a young LeBron James taking on a championship cast in Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace and Ben Wallace. Yet despite the characters in the story changing, there appears to still be a hint of that rivalry just renewed with new people on the Pistons. The star of Detroit is Andre Drummond but his fearless point guard Reggie Jackson doesn’t sound like he’s scared for the opportunity to face LeBron and the Cavs, the favorite to head to the NBA Finals out of the Eastern Conference.
Following from Ethan J. Skolnick of the Miami Herald.
Reggie Jackson on Cavs in 1st round: "I like it… I don't want to fight Goliath's homeboy or little brother. I want to fight Goliath."
— Ethan J. Skolnick (@EthanJSkolnick) April 13, 2016
And from Perry A. Farrell of the Detroit Free Press.
“The world’s not picking us anyway,” Jackson told reporters. “They’re supposed to be the title contenders in the East. If we’re not favored anyway, you might as well get your crack at them, right? Of course, David may not have wanted to fight Goliath, but I don’t want to fight Goliath’s homeboy, or his little brother. I want to go fight Goliath.”
“You play who the schedule says you play,’’ Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy said of the matchup with the top seed in the Eastern Conference. “I don’t worry about it.
“We’re going to have to play a lot better in the playoffs then we played tonight. That’s for sure. We’re not beating Cleveland with that kind of offensive performance. Hopefully we’ll be a lot better.’’
