A 16-2 run to end the second quarter – nine straight Raptors missed shots, the only points coming on DeMar DeRozan free throws – led the Cavs to a 108-89 victory and a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series that’s headed to Toronto for Game 3 Saturday night.
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Lowry had been so solid against the Cavaliers in their three regular-season games, averaging 31 points on 66 per cent shooting.
Aside from James, Cavs point guard Kyrie Irving continued his domination of the backcourt matchup, pouring in 26 points and decimating the Raptor defence.
With the Cavs stepping on the court with its starters mainly Irving, Smith, James, Love and Thompson; the Toronto Raptors matched the line up with their equally strong starters composed of DeRozan, Carroll, Lowry, Scola and Biyombo.
Lowry scored 10 points and is shooting 8 of 28 from the field, including 1 of 15 on 3-pointers in the series.
While the Cavaliers weren’t hitting three-pointers with their usual panache (they hit only 7-21 in this one), they still weren’t as bad as Toronto from deep (as the Raptors hit only 9-33 attempts from behind the arc).
“Everybody can bury us and put us under but we’re not quitting”, Casey said. “We didn’t just get here to be like ‘OK.’ We want to win games”.
James’ big night, meanwhile, propelled him past Shaquille O’Neal for fourth place on the all-time post-season scoring list. That allowed the Cavs to bump up their lead by a point, taking an 86-69 lead into the final period.
In some ways though, Joyce says LeBron’s game hasn’t changed much.
It was a dominating performance in Game 1 as the Cavaliers took care of business to win 115-84. Kyle Lowry and Paul Millsap will make All-NBA teams. The triple double also made him the player with the most 20 points triple-doubles (3), surpassing Magic Johnson, who had 12. “We’ve got (Canada native) Tristan on our team”.
LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, on the other hand, helped lead the Cavaliers within six wins of the first major professional sports championship.
In the playoffs so far, James is unstoppable.
“To be in this position today where I see my name linked to a lot of the greats that have played this game and paved the way for myself and Kyrie and Kev, it means a lot”.
“It’s something that’s been well documented, but it’s not something we think about”, Love said. By the time intermission came, Cleveland found themselves leading 62-48.
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But the Raptors in these playoffs have had shooting issues and have been inconsistent as they needed seven games to defeat the seventh-seeded Indiana Pacers team in the first round and they needed seven games to beat a Miami Heat team that played hard but was missing key players with Chris Bosh and Hassan Whiteside out.
