The not so secret narrative of the Eastern Conference is that barring a catastrophic Lebron injury, every good team in the East not named the Cavaliers is playing for the ultimate goal of making the Eastern Conference Finals. That’s the ceiling for any of the very good but not great teams in the East, of which the Raptors are one. With the exception of a few bad possessions in a row in the fourth quarter as they realized the game had slipped away, the Raptors actually played very well last night. The result was a 22-point loss. Despite so many teams being within just a few games of the Cavs in the standings, last night should make it clear that the Cavs are capable of reaching a potential that nobody else in the East, and certainly not the Raptors, are able to reach. That’s ok. After all, the Cavaliers have one of the best players of all time in Lebron, a young superstar scorer in Kyrie, one of the best power forwards in the league in Kevin Love and a supporting cast that makes sense around them. There are still mostly positives to take away from last night’s loss.
Patrick Patterson is the first example of a positive takeaway. He played a great offensive game! He hit 3 of 5 threes on his way to 15 points. More importantly, after hitting his driving floater early in the game, he finally started to move off of that difficult and timid shot to drive all the way to the basket when he stepped past his man off of a spot-up opportunity. Patrick Patterson is an enormous human being who shouldn’t have to rely on the floater, which is usually the shot of choice for undersized guards trying to sneak a look over top of opposing big men. Patterson is a big man, and he played like one last night, scoring with authority on both of the times he took it all the way in.
DeMar DeRozan continued his now month plus effort of playing into contact and getting his shot to the rim instead of settling for mid range isolation jumpers. He carried the team early with seeming ease with layup after layup, attacking JR Smith. He seemed to run out of steam late in the game, settling for a couple jump shots and committing turnovers, but with his minutes on the second night of a tough back-to-back, that’s understandable. The DeMar that we’ve been seeing who makes his living getting to the rim and is comfortable with contact is an efficient and truly valuable player.
Terrence Ross also continued to look great last night. He’s just playing so much more engaged on both sides of the ball. He was assertive, leading the fastbreak, jumping the passing lanes for steals, looking for his own shot and bringing some much needed off ball motion to the second unit.
As for the rest of the starters, Lowry was his awesome Lowry self, playing solid defense and putting in 23 points and 10 assists. Valanciunas is continuing to try and find his rhythm with this group after the injury still, but we actually saw him pass quickly and intelligently out of a double team on one possession, which is a continued positive sign. James Johnson got the start for the ailing Carroll and was fine. The Cavaliers realized quickly exactly how to play him, making him be a floor spacer but closing just quickly enough on him with Lebron to take away his ability to drive. JJ had one nice drive to the basket, one bad three point attempt and one that dropped. You’ll take it, but kudos to Cleveland for figuring out how to take away his best weapon.
As for the Cavaliers, we saw from them just how deadly they can be when they’re healthy and executing. The Raptors by no means played a bad defensive game. It just didn’t matter. The Cavs seemed to balance perfectly the trio of Lebron driving and either getting to the hoop or creating a wide open shot, Kyrie finding his way to the basket or making the ball move around until the defense was bent enough for them to find the best look. Whenever they couldn’t make a good shot, it felt like Kyrie just hit the bad shot left available to him anyways. Irving’s ability to almost constantly adjust his speed with complete control of the ball while moving through the court on his way to the basket flummoxes just about anyone. The Cavs are simply deadly with healthy Kyrie playing instead of Matthew Dellavedova.
Speaking of, now that Shawn Marion is off the Cavs and out of the league, who has the ugliest looking three point shot in the league? Because Dellavedova has to be in the running with that wide-legged dip and launch two handed follow-through nonsense of his. Joakim Noah’s free throw looks like a fourth graders, but he doesn’t take threes. It might be Kevin Martin, but his three pointer goes in so often that it’s tough to feel good about calling his shot ugly. It’s more aggressively unconventional. Delly is in the running.
While we’re making fun of Cavaliers players as a means of coping with how much better than us and everyone else that they are, are we certain that Timofey Mozgov isn’t at least part ogre? I want a Maury Pauvich DNA test to confirm. And if somehow the DNA test came back completely negative I’m just going to assume that it’s because the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s department tampered with the results. The man is obviously an ogre. Fighting your way around an ogre screen at the top of the perimeter is very hard to do for a defender.
There isn’t much moral victory to take from a 22 point road loss, but again, there shouldn’t be too much negativity either. The Raptors mostly hung around with the Cavs until they got tired in the 4th while the Cavaliers simultaneously shifted into high gear. A healthy DeMarre Carroll would help the Raptors, but the reality is that if Cleveland plays as the best version of themselves, they’re a team that nobody else in the East is keeping up with.
