With four more wins, the 13th-year pro will be playing in his sixth straight NBA Finals and seventh overall.
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It’s a tale of opposites in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals featuring the Cavaliers and Raptors will be played tonight at 8:30 p.m. EDT. Big performances by Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan could help the Raptors steal a game or two. “They didn’t ask me for my vote, so I didn’t give it to ’em”.
“Our approach doesn’t change”, James said. They’re All-Stars for a reason.
If both teams play the way they did the past two playoff series, this Eastern Conference Finals should be a close one.
Acquired in a three-team deal at the trade deadline for Jared Cunningham, Anderson Varejao and a 2018 first-round pick, Frye has become one of LeBron’s favorite toys during these playoffs.
James and company have yet to taste defeat this postseason, as they dispatched the Detroit Pistons and Atlanta Hawks in consecutive 4-0 series. His 12.3 PPG, five points below his regular season average, during that series were on 31 percent shooting from the field and that field goal percentage was almost 10 points bellow his regular season average of.400. The engine powering the offense during the playoffs and regular season has been fueled by the interaction between LeBron James and Kevin Love.
The Cavaliers lost to the Raptors two out of three times during the regular season. He’s still feeling his way through offensively, but his hustle, his play, his timely three-point shots are what we need and why we signed him. With Jonas Valanciunas expected to miss Game’s 1 and 2, they need to step up. Other than Game 5 and 7 in the Raptors-Heat series, it is either Lowry who has a big game or DeRozan. “There’s nothing but respect in our locker room and our organization for LeBron James”.
Look, we’re not beyond being wrong – way wrong! – but doubting the sheer will of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook and doubting the Kyle Lowry-and-DeMar DeRozan crawling-up-a-mountain offence are two different things entirely. “Besides Steph”, though, surely reads in OH like outright warfare… especially less than a week after LeBron responded to Curry’s selection as the NBA’s first unanimous Most Valuable Player – a race in which James finished third – by noting the vague and slippery nature of the term “most valuable,” which, as it happens, doesn’t necessarily mean “best”. They’ve given us an MVP and an all-around good guy in Stephen Curry that you can be proud of and is the face of Bay Area sports across the globe.
The Raptors will start with Bismack Biyombo as Valanciunas’ replacement on Tuesday’s game one.
“He’s the kind of guy that’s a spark for their team”, Love said.
“That’s going to be the issue”, he said.
“They’re such a great transition team, such a great penetrate, pick-and-roll team that you try to stop everything and you don’t stop anything”, he said. The Cavaliers will have a huge advantage on the boards and second chance points not just because of Thompson but because of the matchup problem presented by the Cavaliers frontcourt trio as a whole. Still, you can’t blame Torontonians for feeling themselves – after all, it’s the Raptors’ first ever appearance in the Conference Finals, and since the Cavs had always been decided as their opponent, the fans were essentially just boasting that they had made it this far. “It’s great for Toronto and the country as a whole”.
The Heat forced a Game 7 with a 103-91 victory in Miami on Friday night.
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Toronto Raptors guard Kyle Lowry (7) playing defense against Miami Heat guard Goran Dragic (7) in Game 5 of East Semis.
