Look, we are all taking this season 1 game at a time.  However, it is impossible to ignore the obvious greatness and domination our Wine and Gold Warriors have been demonstrating this season.  They have been "laying the smacketh down" since opening day and haven't looked back. 

Podes, our illustrious illustrator of all things graphics for the Cavaliers Operating Company whose name you might recognize as a recurring reference in The Optimist's prognostications and is pictured here in his normal work attire for a Thursday, has been talking about the 'magic number' since October 30th.  Now it actually means something so we are paying attention to him.  The Cavs 'magic number' is 3 to secure #1 seed in the Eastern Conference Playoffs and 6 to secure the overall #1 and home court advantage should we make it to the NBA Finals.

You might be asking yourself, "Self, what is a 'magic number'?"  I'll tell you what it's not, and when I do, you will understand why I can never go back to Sea World. You see, Self, a 'magic number' is the number that indicated how close a front-running team is to securing a certain goal such as a division title, playoff spot, etc.  According to the all-knowing and all-truthful, Wikipedia, "it represents the total of additional wins by the front-running team or additional losses by the rival team after which it is mathematically impossible for the rival team to capture the title in the remaining games."  It is calculated by taking the total number of games left in the season (G), adding 1 to take into account tie breakers, subtracting the total number of wins by Team A (the Cavaliers - W:C) as well as subtracting the total number of losses by Team B (Celtics, Magic, or Lakers - L:CML).  It looks like this for all of you "Big Bang Theory" fans:

G + 1 - W:C - L:CML

However, good ol' Uncle Dave and the NBA use a more complicated formula for breaking ties, using several other statistics of merit besides overall win/loss record; however the first tiebreaker between two teams is their head-to-head record; if the frontrunning team has already clinched the better head-to-head record, then the +1 is unnecessary.  And as Dewey Finn said in The School of Rock, "and that's the magic number!"  (Told you I would reference it Schaef.)