Cleveland’s big three – Lebron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love – scored 83 of their team’s 113 points to beat the Raptors 4-2 in the series and advance to the finals for the third time in franchise history.
Advertisement
LeBron James seemed determined from the beginning to will the Cavaliers to victory and to reach his sixth consecutive NBA Finals. This is my sixth straight. That really doesn’t matter to me because I really just give it all.
Cleveland now advances to the National Basketball Association final with Lebron James reaching the sixth final in his career. During the 2015 series, they were eventually defeated by defending champions Golden State Warriors within six games.
Toronto’s wins against the Cavs in this series had come when everything went right for them and mostly wrong for Cleveland.
Last year, a depleted Cavs team lost in six games to the Warriors, left to wonder whether things would have worked out differently if Love (left shoulder) and Irving (left knee) had been at full strength. “Congrats to King (LeBron James) and the Cavs on making it to the finals and thank you to the Toronto Raptors for having me be part of this moment!”
“It just didn’t feel the same hobbling into the locker room, knowing that we were going to the finals but I wasn’t at full strength and Kev was out”, Irving said, recalling the Cavs’ East-clinching victory a year ago.
“I had to trust my shot”.
“I kind of got used to it but I think I’m going to give it to my Mom”, he said.
Dellavedova played just eight minutes against Toronto, with Cavaliers’ coach Tyronn Lue rarely resting starting point guard Kyrie Irving – who played 40 minutes – and James who was on the court for a marathon 41 minutes.
“I don’t think so”, DeRozan said, when asked if he could envision a better situation than the one he’s now in. “I took pride in putting that Raptors jersey on when people counted us out or when people said, ‘Why go to Toronto? We’ve got one more round to become great”, James said. “To make six straight finals is fantastic”.
With Casey being the guy the Raptors need to lead them, it is no surprise that ESPN’s Marc Stein is reporting that the Raptors and Casey will soon begin contract extension talks for the head coach.
Cleveland surges ahead in the second Q, as LeBron drives the baseline for the one-handed jam, and that puts the visitors up by 11. It came after a reporter asked him about the team’s performance that evening. One team that’s expected to pursue DeRozan is his hometown Los Angeles Lakers, but when pressed on his initial level of interest, the two-time All-Star sounded lukewarm.
Advertisement
Toronto meanwhile brought the curtain down on their first ever appearance in the Eastern Conference finals with a 35-point display from Kyle Lowry, while DeMar DeRozan added 20 points.
