Wizards' Beal: 'Cleveland didn't want to see us'

The Cleveland Cavaliers have made light work of every team they've faced so far in the NBA playoffs after possibly lucking out on their bracket.

The defending champs swept the Indiana Pacers in the first round and the Toronto Raptors in the semifinals. Now they find themselves up 1-0 over the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals following Wednesday's 117-104 beatdown in Beantown.

Bradley Beal suggested part of that success can be attributed to the weakness of Cleveland's opponents ... opponents the Cavs hoped to run into.

The Washington Wizards weren't one of them.

"Cleveland didn't want to see us," Beal recently told CSN's Chris Miller.

"I always said that. I felt like that's a reason they didn't play us in the second round. They didn't want to see us in the second round. ... If they were going to go down, they were going to go down in the conference finals. They didn't want to go down in the second round.

"They knew we would give them that competitiveness and that challenge. We were going to bring it every night and go out there and try to win. We weren't going to be fazed by who's on the floor. Dang, it sucks. It sucks. It sucks."

Related: Draymond wishes Cavs' opponents would've competed 'a little harder'

Cleveland finished the regular season two games back of the Celtics, effectively avoiding the winner of Boston-Washington until the ECF. The Wizards blew their chance to face the Cavaliers by losing to the C's in seven games.

The Wizards posted a 1-2 record versus the Cavs during the regular season, with one of the losses coming in an overtime thriller.

Sure Beal and Co. might've put up a better fight than some of these other East clubs, but it's hard to believe they would've taken down the Cavs. After all, their campaign ended when they couldn't find an answer for Kelly Olynyk.