Kyrie Irving scored 27 points while LeBron James added 24 as Cavaliers dominated nearly from start to finish to the delight of the home fans at the Quicken Loans Arena.
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The Raptors dropped a 108-89 decision in Game 2 of their Eastern Conference final debut.
The defending conference champions are rolling through the East easily, and the four-time MVP LeBron James and the 2012 Rookie of the Year Kyrie Irving are the big reason why.
James scored 24 points and Irving had 27 as the Cavs made just seven 3-pointers but shot 55.4 percent and scored 56 points in the paint. Expect both of them to come out aggressive with a chip on their shoulder for Game 2 especially considering that most pundits are saying this series is over. We just continue to protect our players. I keep telling you we’re not a jump-shooting team. In fact, whenever anyone asked him about the Cavs becoming strictly a three-point shooting team, he would get a little miffed. We gave him all of his options in Game 1.
Kevin Love had 14 points and four rebounds, his first game in this postseason without a double-double. He went 0-for-8 from the field for one point in Game 7, then scored four points on 1-for-6 shooting Toronto’s embarrassing Game 1 loss to Cleveland on Tuesday.
Thursday night against the Raptors, he posted an easy triple-double of 23 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists in 33 minutes, the final 10 of which were in an out-of-reach contest.
“Now it’s going to be DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowry, Tristan Thompson, Andrew Wiggins”, said Raptors coach Dwane Casey.
“I know when I’m going to come out and that’s one thing about rotations in the National Basketball Association, we know when we’re going in and when we’re going out”, Lowry said.
“I see these guys, I see it in their eyes, and we’re a very resilient team and we always come back strong”, general manager Masai Ujiri said. Kevin Love had shot a insane percent age from 3-point range through the first two rounds of the National Basketball Association playoffs.
Cleveland’s dominating 115-84 victory over the Raptors in the series-opener on Tuesday reinforced the point. “We have to take one or two of those options away to have any chance”. Hot shooting and hustling defense allowed the Cavaliers to make a 22 to two run in the quarter, eventually ending with a 66-44 lead at the half. “We’re now starting two of our good bench guys that led that brigade, that second unit, but some things we can do with the rotation, who we bring in, who we can bring back in and do a better job of making sure we have the right guys in, right combinations in”.
“I credit a lot of my teammates just helping me out throughout the course of the game and us being in the right spots and us doing whatever it took to limit those guys to the easy shots that they were getting nearly last series and getting into a good rhythm, so we just wanted to make it a little tough on them”.
Stopping both is the dilemma the Raptors now face, one that both the Detroit Pistons and Atlanta Hawks failed to accomplish in the first and second rounds.
The Raptors have been in this position before.
While the Raptors won two-of-three games versus Cleveland in the regular season, the Cavaliers are the overwhelming favourites to win a series that Charles Barkley described as “guppies versus sharks”. This will be their toughest test yet.
“That’s a phenomenal number”, Casey said, taking it in.
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Casey felt the need to speak with his players after their Game 7 win over Miami about not being satisfied in what’s already been the deepest postseason run in franchise history.
