Drake Night 3, OVO headbands, a Hotline Bling activation booth, the 9-6 Toronto Raptors back home, and LeBron James. What a time to be alive, indeed.
Tonight should be a lot of fun, with James and the 11-3 Cleveland Cavaliers visiting the ACC. James is always appointment viewing, and the Cavs come in somewhat shorthanded, leaving room for optimism. The Raptors, meanwhile, should finally be well rested after their five-game west coast road trip. That’s not to say anything will be easy, because the Cavs sit atop the East and own the league’s third-best point differential, albeit they’ve faced one of the easier schedules to date. Even banged up, they’re remarkably good, and it’s scary to look at where they are now, still without Kyrie Irving and Iman Shumpert, compared to where they were a season ago.
The game tips off at 7:30 on TSN 1 and TSN 4.
Raptors to debut OVO inspired black & gold uniforms tonight vs. Cavaliers. #DrakeNight #WeTheNorth pic.twitter.com/y1LxVBAtfi
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) November 25, 2015
—
To help set the stage, we reached out to Justin Rowan of Fear the Sword, who really seemed to lament not being able to make the trip from Manitoba for Drake Night and the Cavs.
Blake Murphy: So, uhh, the Cavs are quite good. And out of the gate this season instead of stumbling first. It’s terrifying from the perspective of a second-tier Eastern Conference competitor. Just how high is confidence that the Cavs can roll through to the NBA Finals once again, and what could conceivably stop them?
Justin Rowan: I’ll say my confidence is pretty high currently. The Cavaliers are currently at the top of the East without Kyrie Irving and Iman Shumpert while also having Timofey Mozgov, J.R. Smith and Mo Williams also missing significant amounts of time. The depth this year is significantly better than it was last season with the growth Matthew Dellavedova has shown, the additions of Richard Jefferson and the return of longtime starter and now third string center, Anderson Varejao. Injuries are obviously the biggest concern, and if I had to identify an Eastern team with the most potential to test the Cavs it would likely be the Miami Heat. But outside of a major injury to LeBron James a second consecutive Finals berth seems likely.
Blake Murphy: Kevin Love looks far more comfortable than a year ago, and now that his shooting has regressed to his normal levels after a cold start, his numbers are striking. I’ve noticed the Cavs are using Love a lot more creatively, moving him around the floor rather than having him spot up. What are some specific ways they’re getting Love involved, and is there much that can be done to stop it?
Justin Rowan: Love is finally playing at a level that people are used to seeing him at. Last year was a combination of him being out of shape, hurt as a result, being used poorly and him taking time to buy into what the Cavs are doing. Physically he’s in the best shape of his career and that has had a dramatic positive impact on his mobility, defense and rebounding. Right now he has been the most productive post scorer in the NBA by a wide margin, but the most important thing is the number of touches he receives a game. His shot attempts are only up about two from last season, but with the Cavs new ball movement offense he gets the rock in his hands way more times than last year. He’s a brilliant passer for a big man so getting him lots of touches has opened up playmaking opportunities and he doesn’t feel he needs to force his offense like he did last season, because he knows more touches are coming. The Cavs have dramatically reduced the number of isolation possessions they use a game, so if you want to stop any one player you’d need to play defense on a string, reduce the number of breakdowns and play solid one on one defense. Otherwise you’ll surrender a lot of open threes to a team that doesn’t hesitate to launch away.
Blake Murphy: The Cavs play one of the slowest paces in the league and force nearly the fewest turnovers. Is that a schematic thing on the defensive end, and can we expect it to change some with Mozgov out of the lineup?
Justin Rowan: The Cavs will always play at a slower pace. It might increase a bit once Kyrie Irving returns and whenever Tristan Thompson is in for Timofey Mozgov. But LeBron teams typically play at a slow pace and are very focused on generating good offense in the half-court. They look to run whenever they get stops or turnovers and their efficiency in those situations is why they’re one of the better fastbreak teams in the NBA. But the number of post ups the Cavs run and how committed they are to getting good shots rather than rushing their offense will always result in a slow pace. A slow pace is one of the reasons the Cavs were able to give Golden State trouble in the regular season and in the playoffs shorthanded. Limiting the amount of easy transition baskets they get is essential to trying to slow down one of the most terrifying offenses the league has ever seen. So it’s a part of the Cavs identity I can’t really foresee them changing.
—
Justin pointing out the need to stop the Cavs in transition is interesting considering where the Raptors find themselves right now. Transition defense has been a bit of an issue for them despite not turning the ball over a great deal, in part because the Raptors are crashing the offensive glass more than any team in the NBA. That’s not something head coach Dwane Casey preaches – much the opposite, usually – and he’s expressed a need to eschew some of those opportunities to get back and get set.
That could be a tough sell Wednesday given both sides are missing their starting center. The Raptors may feel they have more occasion for crashing without Mozgov inside, as the Cavs are a top-five defensive rebounding team but take a bit of a hit on the glass when Mozgov isn’t sharing the floor with Love or Thompson. Meanwhile, the absence of Jonas Valanciunas means the Raptors are deploying either Bismack Biyombo, a strong offensive rebounder, or James Johnson, who loves to hunt for long second chance opportunities.
I’d imagine Casey emphasizes a quick retreat against the league’s No. 3 offense, especially when the Cavs have a single big or the Love-Thompson duo on the floor.
That duo is just difficult in general, and Mozgov’s absence may actually make the Cavs tougher to match up against. They’re 11 points per-100 possessions better with him off the floor so far this year, and tonight’s starting unit (if Mo Williams can’t go; Dellavedova-Smith-James-Love-Thompson) has eviscerated teams by 34.2 points per-100 possessions over 51 minutes together.
Without their own preferred small lineup, the Raptors have some tough match-up choices to make. DeMarre Carroll playing the four is certainly an option, but that either takes him away from James or tasks DeMar DeRozan with checking a big, something that won’t fly against Love (post-ups) or Thompson (rebounds). The smaller group is palatable when James or James Jones are at the four, which may be the case for small stretches. Instead, the match-up calls for Patrick Patterson to step up, as he may be the team’s best option to check Love when Carroll is on James. Coming off of two days off and with two more after tonight (Thanksgiving and Black Friday, how lucky), expect Carroll to basically draw James-shadowing duty and play 40 of the toughest minutes imaginable.
James, of course, is probably the best player in the world, or very close to it depending on how you rank some singularly talented players in the west. He’s averaging 25.8 points, 7.1 rebounds, 6.7 assists, and 1.5 steals while shooting 51.7 percent from the floor. The Cavs are an obscene 29.3 points per-100 possessions better with him on the floor, a number that may somehow understate his importance. For as good and as deep as the Cavs are this time around, everything starts and ends with James. Carroll’s done a nice job on James in the past, particularly in the regular season the last two years, but shutting him down is always a near-impossible task. God speed.
The pressure on the offensive end falls on the heads of the Raptors’ starting backcourt. Kyle Lowry will have a pest on him in Dellavedova and DeRozan could see some James coverage, but the Raptors may not get much in the way of second chance opportunities or interior scoring. On the bright side, James switching on to DeRozan late may prevent him from the end-of-game hero-ball we’ve all been rolling our eyes at of late.
Really, tonight comes down to DeMarre Carroll all over LeBron James and Kyle Lowry Over Everything.
Injuries
Raptors: Bruno Caboclo (D-League), Delon Wright (D-League), Jonas Valanciunas (hand) are all unavailable
Cavaliers: Kyrie Irving (knee), Timofey Mozgov (shoulder), Iman Shumpert (wrist) are all unavailable; Mo Williams (leg) is questionable
The Line
The Raptors are 1.5-point underdogs at home. That surprised me a bit, as I had it penciled for three points and it hasn’t shifted at all. Perhaps I’m more terrified of James and the LOV3 GUN than the market, or the market is pricing in a Drake Night bump (the Raptors have never lost on Drake Night). The over-under feels a shade high at 198.5. I’ll take the Cavs (sorry) and the under.
Cavaliers 97, Raptors 93
