Many players deny themselves value when they play deep stacked cash games by simply betting their opponents from the hand or raising them from the hand. Now let us say that your opponent raises from the button and you call with A-J in the big blind. Now clearly your opponent will be raising with a wide range. Now let us also say that the flop comes Jh-6c-3s and you have top pair and top kicker. Unless your opponent has a set or a bigger pair then you are almost certainly ahead. Many players check here to allow their opponent to bet and this is not a bad play as your opponent will see that you are unlikely to have connected with that flop.
However they are also unlikely to have connected and so a simple check-call will look scary and a check-raise will blow them from the hand. If you come out betting with say a two thirds pot sized bet then this will blow away all hands that would have bet as a bluff. So most of your opponents will fire maybe one barrel or two but most will not stack off. But even if they did then you would find it difficult to call three barrels with one pair and so you will fold the best hand some of the time.
But a weak lead can induce aggressive players to commit and try to push you from the hand. Imagine if you bet the flop and they call you and the turn card is an ace. This will be a double edged sword for you because although you have top two pair it is also a card that scares your opponent. But what seems like a half pot lead may look to your opponent that you fear the ace and they may raise trying to represent the very hand that you actually have.
