The Cleveland Cavaliers will have no trouble scoring at an efficient rate with offensive talents like LeBron James, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving sharing the floor. The real question is how good will the Cavaliers be on defense, particularly their interior defense?

Anderson Varejao is currently slated to start at the five and will be asked to provide a much-needed interior presence. He provides the Cavaliers with the high-energy type of player that they desperately need. The havoc he initiates on the defensive end will be a menace for opposing offenses down in block. Besides being a notorious flopper, Varejao has a knack for grabbing rebounds. Last year, he was the ninth best per 48-minute rebounder.

Varajao has had trouble staying on the floor, having only played in 146 out of a possible 328 games over the past three seasons. Varejao is entering his 11th season and closing in on 32, which makes it unrealistic to expect him to play more than 60 games.

Tristan Thompson will be coming off the bench for either Love or Varajao as a backup big, and looked upon to provide a tough interior presence. The knock on Thompson has been his inability to consistently play as a key contributor in the paint. Through Thompson’s three seasons in the league, his block rate has fallen from 3.3 to 2.2 to 1.1. It will be interesting if his initial success as a rookie in this area can be found again as he can expound more energy and agressiveness on that side of the floor.

David Blatt appointed Brendan Haywood as the team’s rim protector. For a big man entering the age of 34 and his foot injury that sidelined him all of last year, Haywood providing any sort of rim protection on a consistent basis would be absolutely absurd.

Even when James was playing in Miami, he did not win his first ring until they upgraded their rim protector from Joel Anthony to Chris Andersen. Just this past season, the Heat recorded their best defensive efficiency of 100.6 with Andersen on the court, and their third worse efficiency of 104.3 with Birdman on the bench per NBA.com. 

One of the main reasons Love was never able to reach the playoffs in the Western Conference was because he wasn't paired with a shotblocker. Similar to 2011 when Nowitzki had Tyson Chandler as his counterpart, it is impossible to play championship caliber defense without a rim protector. Last season, the Timberwolves ranked 29th in points allowed in the paint—2nd worse in NBA—at 46.1.

Over the past decade, only three teams to reach The Finals finished outside the top-ten of defensive efficiency. The 2006 Heat and Mavericks posted defensive efficiency rankings of 17 and 12 respectively. Last year, the Heat were only the third Finals participant to not finish in the top-ten, with a 102.9 defensive efficiency rating and 11th ranking. 

Assembling a championship caliber roster and reaching The Finals in the first year is a daunting task. The Cavaliers certainly have the pieces and talent to win at least 12 games in the playoffs, but the expectations to win without the proper personnel of a quality shotblocker is a challenge without a precedent.