The Eastern Conference finals rematch comes one round earlier this year, as LeBron James and the defending NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers face off against DeMar DeRozan and the third-seeded Toronto Raptors. This may be a rematch, but both teams feature new faces, so this could be a more even and entertaining matchup than last year’s series, which the Cavs won in six games.

Serge Ibaka should make a big impact for Toronto, and late-season defensive struggles pose a problem for Cleveland. But the Cavs are well rested, and with a seventh straight conference finals appearance on the line, James will come to play. — Malika Andrews

How They Got Here

• Cleveland: LeBron James won his 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st first-round playoff games in a row, and the Cavs swept the seventh-seeded Indiana Pacers. Sounds straightforward, right?

Wrong. The series featured the smallest aggregate margin of victory ever in a first-round four-game sweep, and equaled the record for the tightest sweep in playoff history, regardless of round. The Cavs took the four games by a combined 16 points, and very easily could have dropped three of them. Indiana’s C.J. Miles missed a would-be game-winner at the buzzer in Game 1, Cleveland erased a 25-point halftime deficit in Game 3 and the Pacers had multiple opportunities to prolong the series in Game 4 . Alas, the Cavs featured the best player in the world, and he improved to 48-7 in first-round playoff games, 12-0 in first-round series, and 7-for-12 in first-round sweeps.

But how did the Cavs get here, as the No. 2 seed, squaring off with what many people believe to be the East’s second-best team in the conference semis? Because they waltzed through the second half of the regular season without a smidgen of concern about their playoff seeding. Or because they have serious defensive flaws. Or, most likely, some combination of both.

After the All-Star break, Cleveland finished 12-15 and posted the second-worst defensive rating in the entire league. Some of those same defensive issues leaked into the first round, advancing the theory that, hey, maybe there is no figurative switch to flip on that end of the floor; maybe the Cavs just aren’t a very good defensive team.

They’re an immaculate offensive one, though, and are therefore decided favorites over the Raptors. But their route to the second round has shown they’re not untouchable.

• Toronto: Nothing comes easy for Toronto in the playoffs. Not in Round 1. And especially not in Game 1.

The Raptors haven’t won a series opener in 16 years, and dug themselves a hole yet again in 2017. They dropped Game 1 to fall behind a young, long, energetic Milwaukee Bucks team that had designs on an upset, and they fell behind again 2-1 after a blowout in Milwaukee. The Game 3 disaster almost had the hint of a loss that could blow up an entire roster and put an abrupt end to an era.

But DeRozan and Kyle Lowry had other ideas. DeRozan exploded for 33 points in a Game 4 win, Toronto cruised to a 3-2 lead in Game 5, and the Raps held on in Milwaukee to seal the series in six.

They did so in part because of a series-altering decision from head coach Dwane Casey. The Raptors had rolled with a starting frontcourt of Ibaka, DeMarre Carroll and Jonas Valanciunas since the trade deadline, but swapped 6-foot-4 Norman Powell for the 7-foot Valanciunas in Game 4 to better match Milwaukee’s athleticism. The change unshackled Toronto’s offense and aided its perimeter defense. Powell scored a team-high and career-high 25 points in Game 5, as the Raptors assisted on 28 of their 41 made field goals. They also held the Bucks to 0.92 points per possession over the final three games of the series, securing a second-round spot despite scoring just 93.8 points per game for the series.

Powell’s insertion into the starting lineup didn’t necessarily solve Toronto’s offensive issues, which hang over the Raptors’ heads as they prepare for a second-round duel with LeBron and the Cavs. But the Raps did show in Game 5 they can survive without superhuman efforts from their two star guards. Or at least they can against the Bucks. Cleveland might be a different proposition. — Henry Bushnell

Head-to-Head

There’s not a whole lot of precedent here, mostly because the versions of the two teams that will take the floor in Game 1 have never seen each other before.

Three of the four regular-season meetings between the two came before Christmas — before the Cavs acquired Kyle Korver and Deron Williams, and before the Raptors traded for Ibaka and P.J. Tucker. The fourth meeting, on the final night of the regular season, didn’t feature James, DeRozan, Kevin Love or Kyrie Irving.

Cleveland won all three with their big three, as James, Love and Irving combined for 86 points in the third win. To be fair, the Raptors started rookie Pascal Siakam at power forward in all three losses. They’re a different, and better, team now.

The other relevant history here — and perhaps the more relevant history — is last year’s Eastern Conference finals. The Cavs won in six, but the individual games offered a wide array of outcomes that provided some insight into what to look for a year later.

In two beatdowns in Cleveland to open the series, Lowry was really poor. Irving, on the other hand, had game-highs in both. But when the site of the battle shifted north, the script flipped. James got no help in Game 3 (Irving and Love were a combined 4-of-28 from the field), and Toronto got on the board with a win . In Game 4, the Raptors pulled even thanks to 35 points from Lowry, who got the better of Irving at home.

But the Cavs asserted themselves in Games 5 and 6, shooting better than 50 percent from beyond the arc and holding Lowry in check. Cleveland’s four wins came by a combined 114 points. The series, in the end, was fairly one-sided. — Bushnell

Likely Starting Lineups

When the chess match begins on Monday, Casey will have first move. He knows exactly how Cleveland will start: With Kyrie Irving at point, J.R. Smith at the two, LeBron at LeBron, Love at the four, and Tristan Thompson at the five.

If Casey wants to match up like for like, he’ll go back to his customary five, with Valanciunas and Ibaka opposite Thompson and Love. On paper, Ibaka and his mobility are a good counter for Love’s inside-out offensive game, and Valanciunas can bang with Thompson. If Casey were to leave Valanciunas out of the lineup, either Love or Thompson would present a mismatch for Powell or Carroll, and there wouldn’t necessarily be a reciprocal mismatch on the other end.

On the other hand, small-ball worked. Really well. The Lowry-DeRozan-Powell-Carroll-Ibaka grouping outscored the Bucks by 17.4 points per 100 possessions in the series, according to John Schuhmann of NBA.com . Toronto’s original starting five, on the other hand, was a minus-20.6 points per 100 possessions over the six games. Some of the success of the small-ball lineup was matchup-dependent, of course, and that doesn’t carry over to Round 2. But Powell was also just, well, really good. That does carry over. Or, at least, it could. So Casey has a difficult decision to make.

On Cleveland’s side, the lineup of interest isn’t the starting lineup; it’s the closing one. When Ty Lue sat Irving and Love for the entire fourth quarter of Game 3 , which saw the Cavs pull off a historic comeback, eyebrows were raised. But Lue’s move wasn’t desperate; it was rational.

When James, Love and Irving were on the floor together in the first round, the Cavs outscored the Pacers by just 1.4 points per 100 possessions. When Lue surrounded James with Deron Williams, Korver and Channing Frye, the LeBron-and-shooters lineups outscored Indiana by 17.5 points per 100 possessions.

Small sample size caveats apply, but the numbers told us the same thing our eyes have for years: LeBron surrounded by four shooters is darn near unstoppable. Those groups posted offensive ratings around 140. If the Cavs find themselves in tight games late, will Lue stick with his stars? Or will he go to LeBron and The Bench? — Bushnell

Matchups to Watch

• Lowry vs. … Irving? : Given how his offense dictated last year’s series, Lowry is the key for Toronto on that end of the floor. The other key: expose Irving, one of the worst defensive point guards in the league. On paper, those keys should overlap. But are we sure Lue will stick with that matchup?

Irving started on Lowry in all three regular-season meetings in which both played. But in the second half of the third game, Kyrie often found himself guarding another Raptor wing, such as Terrence Ross, while Iman Shumpert took Lowry and James stuck DeRozan. A similar alignment would make a lot of sense when the Raptors go small in this series. Even if they play two bigs, LeBron on either DeRozan or Lowry would be Lue’s “OK, time to stop messing around” move. He might decide to hide Irving on Carroll, Toronto’s least potent offensive threat, to make it more difficult for the Raptors to target Irving’s defensive frailties.

• Toronto’s pick-and-roll offense vs. Cleveland’s pick-and-roll defense : Toronto uses ball screens at the highest rate in the NBA, and its guards attack off those ball screens more than any other team, too. The Raptors scored 0.95 points per trip during the regular season on possessions that ended with a shot or turnover from a pick-and-roll ball handler, the second-highest rate in the league.

On the other side, Cleveland had the fifth-worst defense on such plays, and the third-worst when an opponent’s possession ended with an action from the initial screener. Irving is particularly weak as an on-ball defender when hit with a screen from an opposing big, and Love has struggled with the Cavs’ pick-and-roll coverages ever since arriving in Cleveland. Lue has claimed he has a solution up his sleeve for Cleveland’s defensive woes. Implementing it right now, against a team that will regularly attack a particularly vulnerable aspect of the Cavs’ defense, would probably be a good idea. — Bushnell

How the Raptors Can Win

While Toronto’s lone win over the Cavs this season came when Lue rested James, Irving and Love, a Raptors win is still possible. For Toronto to ride off into the Eastern Conference finals sunset, they will have to take advantage of the Cavaliers mediocre defense, and Ibaka has to live up to the hype that attended his arrival from the Orlando Magic in mid-February.

The Cavs have left a lot to be desired on the defensive end this season, posting a first-round defensive rating of 111.0, 13th in a 16-team field. Toronto poses much more of an offensive threat than Indiana did, so that could be trouble for Cleveland.

During the regular season, Cleveland had the worst transition defense in the league. The Raptors aren’t an uptempo team, but they will need to exploit that, and the small-ball starting lineup that outscored Milwaukee by an average of 17.4 points per 100 possessions in the playoffs (good for third among lineups that played 35 or more minutes) might be able to do it.

The Raptors don’t have an answer for LeBron — nobody does, pretty much — but they’re deeper than they were last year, and have the potential to win other matchups. They’ve added Ibaka to fill their power forward hole and provide another scorer to complement Lowry and DeRozan, completing a powerful small-ball Toronto lineup. Ibaka gave the Raptors 12.8 points per game against the Bucks and could win his matchup against Love, who struggled at the beginning of last year’s conference finals.

“He brings a ton of energy,” Love said of Ibaka, according to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin. “Played really well in Round 1, so he just gives them a whole different look and a guy who has a ton of playoff experience coming from Oklahoma City. Obviously getting traded from Orlando, but all his playoff experience being there and playing in a lot of big games. He really helps them.”

Toronto is 22-9 since acquiring Ibaka.

The Raps were also without their center Jonas Valanciunas for the first four games of the 2016 conference finals, and he performed well against Milwaukee after moving to the second unit to make room for Powell in the starting lineup. Strong outings from a deeper bench keyed by Valanciunas, hard-nosed defender Tucker and versatile forward Patrick Patterson would go a long way toward pushing the Cavs over the edge. — Andrews

How the Cavaliers Can Win

Despite matching 51-31 regular-season records, the Cavaliers enter the matchup as the heavy favorite. Defense could be the Cavs’ Achilles heel, but it could also be their saving grace, if a week off to rest and watch film has helped them refine their defensive strategies for slowing down Lowry and DeRozan.

Secondly, James needs to do what he did last year and what he does best: take over the game. In the 2016 conference finals, James averaged 26 points, 8.5 rebounds and 6.7 assists per game. When LeBron sat in the first round against the Pacers, the Cavs were outscored by 12 points in 17 minutes. His presence and the team’s success are inextricably linked.

The Cavs are 28-4 in Eastern Conference playoff games since James returned home and the Raptors, while they may be the second best team in the East, don’t have enough star power to finish off James and his championship-caliber army of shooters. Basically, unless James gets hurt, the Cavs should go to their third consecutive Eastern Conference Finals. — Andrews

Best Reason to Watch

To find out just how much of a difference Ibaka makes for Toronto. In a lopsided Eastern Conference, fans are constantly looking for who can dethrone the King. While things aren’t looking great for the Raptors’ chances of coming out on top, it will be worth tuning in to see just how much the Raptors improved with their midseason makeover; Ibaka has not seen playing time against the Cavaliers since putting on a Toronto jersey, after resting in their fourth and final head-to-head of the season.

Plus, is there ever a reason to not watch LeBron James? — Andrews

Prediction

Toronto did improve by adding new blood to the roster, but it isn’t enough to take the Cavs out. The Raptors will win one at home in front of a rambunctious “We The North” crowd, but that’s all. Cavs in 5. — Andrews