I’m ready to go home.
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We’ve read all kinds of variations of the following observation too many times, but it doesn’t make it any less true: The Cavaliers are alive in the second round of the National Basketball Association playoffs, but it’s hard to feel very good about their lackluster showing against the Indiana Pacers.
The Raptors had 79 points at the half in Cleveland in this game (March 21st). They have to trust the vets who’ve been there before.
LeBron James posted 45 points in Sunday’s win over the Indiana Pacers, with a further 9 rebounds and 7 assists.
It was Thompson’s 15th double double in the playoffs for his career. In last year’s four-game sweep of Toronto, James faked like he was taking a swig from a courtside fan’s beer. Toronto is more rested, has home-court advantage and just got Fred VanVleet back to help its slipping bench performance against Cleveland’s porous defense.
Eliminating LeBron from the playoffs, of course, is no easy task to accomplish. Last year it was in round two, the year previous it was the Eastern Conference Final. Yet, 33-year-old LeBron James is in a class of his own, and any defense eventually falters against a player of his caliber.
According to the Cleveland Cavaliers website, tickets for the first two Cavs home games in Round 2 of the Eastern Conference Playoffs will be available beginning at 11 a.m.
“Just got to be smart about the situation”, Lue said, via ESPN.com’s Dave McMenamin. “It was like, your mind is thinking like, ‘OK, besides the two I played in the Finals, you start thinking like, is this it?” Jordan Clarkson isn’t a catch and shoot guy. “We brought it every night”.
Lue noted that James only looks exhausted “after the game, but not during the game”.
This hack-of-a-scribe is willing to go out on the ledge by predicting the red-hot Pelicans will win this series if Curry doesn’t play or is clearly limited. O.G. Anunoby, Pascal Siakam, and Jakob Poeltl have developed into productive role players. Nance added just a point, but contributed four rebounds. Defensively, he frees Kevin Love of the burden to guard the opposing team’s center, something which looms larger in this series because of the width of Raptors center Jonas Valanciunas compared to the leaner tandem of Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis for the Pacers. Hood was a little better (6.3 points), but was 2-of-12 from deep.
And so, the Raptors contemplate their third attempt at regicide saying numerous same things that they have said previously.
DeRozan, who averaged a career-best 5.2 assist this season and handed out at least five helpers in 50 games, was relatively quiet in his three games against Cleveland during the regular season – averaging 17.7 points per on 43 percent shooting. “I know the Cavs are kind of used to blowing through the first couple series”. “We all have that confidence in ourselves”. They have bigs that are somewhat unorthodox and can play inside or outside, pick and pop.
“He’s gotta do his job on the ball, the weak side has to do their job on the ball, because there’s certain things we wanna do, certain places we need to be, and if they’re not, it’s all for nought”.
“We have a great opportunity ahead of us to show how good of a team we’ve been”, Lowry said. “It definitely will help us going forward”. James was in the locker room either getting or refusing an IV (it’s not clear – he said he refused one when offered), and then he returned to the bench.
Single game tickets for Games 3 and 4 in Cleveland for the Cavaliers second-round matchup against the Toronto Raptors go on sale on Tuesday. “In Game 4 the same thing happened again in the third quarter and we was able to keep our composure and end that quarter the right way and eventually win that game”.
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Thompson said James inspires everyone around him.
