The Raptors, who are off to a nightmarish start in the franchise’s first-ever appearance in the Eastern Conference Finals, had to make do once again without injured center Jonas Valanciunas, who may compete in Thursday night’s Game 2, which will also be played in Cleveland. Cleveland has played nine and won nine in the playoffs to date, becoming the fifth team in National Basketball Association history to start that way.In 2009, James and the Cavs swept both Detroit and Atlanta in the first two rounds, just like this year.
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While the Raptors were able to hang around early on, trailing only by five points after the first quarter which saw Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan play the entire first 12 minutes.
CLEVELAND (AP) – Still unbeaten, still undeniable. And we have the Cleveland who are rolling through the East easily. The Cavs rolled anyway, becoming the first team to win their first nine postseason games since the 2012 San Antonio Spurs, who won their first 10 before losing four straight to the Oklahoma City Thunder. “We’ve got to come out the gate with that mindset, being aggressive like we usually do, and I think we didn’t try to do that until later on in the game”.
“Rather than getting upset about it, we win over it and we show with our game”, he said.
Pluto says regardless of what happens in the first couple of games of the series, Toronto is much better than the two teams the Cavs faced in the first two rounds. I’ve won 14 games in the postseason before.
“We will face some adversity”, James said.
The 31-point win was the most lopsided in Cleveland’s postseason history.
This wasn’t the three-point demolition the Atlanta Hawks saw but this just proves that the Cavs are more than just a three-point shooting team. In terms of three-point shooting, the Cavs have been lighting it up in these playoffs but they connected on just seven of 20 attempts in this game, but they absolutely dominated the boards by 45-23 and held the Raptors to just 20.8 percent shooting from three.
The Toronto Raptors have been here so many times, it’s nearly become their comfort zone. The prideful Lowry will undoubtedly take the matchup personally in Game 2. The Cavaliers swept their first two opponents and had a nine-day layoff. The Cavaliers, however, seemed entirely locked in for the majority of the game, seeming as though they didn’t miss a beat on their way to this commanding game one win. DeRozan led the Raptors with 16, but the team as a whole struggled to find a shooting flow as Cleveland continued to spread the gap between the two teams. James finished with 24 points, six rebounds and four assists. James spent the final quarter on the bench cheering on Cleveland’s reserves.
This was Cleveland at full force, not the version missing Kevin Love and Irving in last year’s Finals.
“They’ve trained their bodies all season long to get back to this point – those guys are spectacular”. Cleveland is 9-0 in the playoffs and its latest superb performance was a 115-84 trouncing of Toronto in Game 1.The 31-point margin of victory was the largest in Cavaliers’ postseason history and the Raptors tried to put on courageous faces after the annihilation. This Lowry, quite simply, wasn’t a factor because he wasn’t the player he was all year.
But by the end of the first quarter, the Cavs led 33-28 and would not surrender the lead for the remainder of the evening.
The Cavaliers quickly sprinted into a 49-30 lead and although the Raptors hit back to narrow the gap to 54-42, it was only a temporary staunching of the tide.
“This score is embarrassing”, he said. The duo went on to combine for 0 of 8 from the three-point line.
And that might be the scariest thing of all.
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With the Raptors so intent on stopping the Cavaliers from beating them from deep, Cleveland adjusted. “We’ve got to get our minds adjusted and bodies adjusted”. The Raptors were so focused on taking away 3-point shots that the Cavs were able to simply blow by them and get into the paint.
