Coming home after dropping two straight in Cleveland meant that Toronto had to come away victorious if they wanted to make the series competitive and respectable. With a little more than five minutes left to go in the 4th quarter, the Raptors led by 10 points. By breaking down their possessions on both ends of the court, we can see how the Raptors executed to hold onto their lead.
Defense
The Cavaliers initiated their crunch time offense by going to an ATO (after timeout) special for their small-ball lineup (which featured Frye instead of Love).
A common action is run for Smith, as he makes an Iverson cut across both screeners at the elbow. Defending a shooter, Lowry naturally trails as to not allow Smith any open space to bomb away from deep. As a result, Lowry allows Smith to sharply cut backdoor as James makes an obnoxiously stellar no-look pass for the easy layup. The key here is that Biyombo’s assignment is Frye, who is standing close enough to the three-point arc to be a perimeter threat. This disallows Biyombo to sag back and bump Smith’s cut to the rim, which would have disrupted his movement and allowed Lowry time to recover. Pretty smart ATO set when considering the personnel on the floor.
As it was so successful the first time, the Cavaliers go back to the same base set on the next trip down the floor.
Lowry, all the wiser after experiencing the set-play once, decides to duck under the screen so Smith doesn’t trot towards the basket unattended once again. The Cavaliers have ran this set plenty throughout the regular season and have variations and counters – one of which they deployed here by having Smith set a Flare screen for Frye. He catches Biyombo on the screen but does not fully take Lowry out of the play and he is able to run Frye off the three-point line. Frye penetrates and makes the defense bend towards him and finds Smith open. The shot doesn’t fall but the possession is successful in the eyes of “process over results” thinkers.
The following possession is less scripted, as we see Irving use a Drag screen (pick and roll in transition) with Frye as the screener. A slight miscommunication between Joseph and Biyombo does not harm the Raptors, as Joseph fights over the screen and does not give any ground to Irving, while Biyombo hedges ever-so-slightly before recovering back to Frye with no advantage surrendered. Irving uses a re-screen as Joseph and Biyombo get back on the same page by denying the middle of the floor (Joseph) while simultaneously corralling the ball handler and then recovering to Frye (Biyombo). Biyombo’s foot speed does him wonders as he doesn’t allow Frye an open look.
Frye then continues the offensive sequence by engaging in a DHO. Biyombo and Patterson happily switch (as is now customary whenever James is slotted at the 4-spot) and Biyombo allows James the middle of the floor. A combination of Biyombo contesting James and Joseph meandering over to clutter the lane forces a rare miss at the rim for James. The take away here is that the Cavaliers know they can comfortably get Biyombo to switch onto James at will, which will become a theme for the remainder of the quarter.
James engages in another pick and roll with Frye as to secure Biyombo as his primary defender on the switch. As the action stalls on the ball, notice how Lowry and Patterson negotiate defensive responsibilities on the weakside. Patterson steps into the lane (and steps out every 2.9 seconds as to avoid a “3 in the key” call) while Lowry sets himself up into a weakside zone. This is done as the Raptors expect Biyombo to be blown by and to prevent an easy dunk for James, they send help with Patterson in anticiaption. If James decides to kick it out for three, Lowry will recover to the shooter and the rest of the defense will rotate appropriately.
James is an expert at picking apart this type of defense – as he is with any defense. The Cavaliers dealt with this a ton in the Finals last year against Golden State and it is now customary for them to use a Flare screen (as Shumpert proceeds to do) because a screening situation necessitates two defenders to negotiate responsibilities and if Patterson is preoccupied with James, the Cavaliers can secure some good looks around the arc. Unfortunately for them, Shumpert thrusts his hips a little too much and gets called for an illegal screen, but as you will shortly see, running that sequence over and over again produces some pretty high percentage shots.
Instead of utilizing just a single screen on-ball for James, the Cavaliers send both of Smith and Frye. Their weak screens don’t do much damage as Patterson scampers above them with relative ease.
Similar to the second possession analyzed, the Cavaliers use Smith as a screener off-ball for Frye but the Raptors amicably switch and un-switch to mitigate that action’s effectiveness.
After draining six seconds off the shot clock, James decides to take Patterson one-on-one and Biyombo steps up into the role of an anticipating helper while Joseph forms a weakside zone. Once again, the Cavaliers pick at this advantage by using a Flare screen on the defender assigned to the weakside zone and are able to get an actual shot out of it this time. Kyrie had a rough night shooting, in part due to Joseph’s stellar defense, but on this possession he just misses a good look.
The James pick and roll show continues with James engaging in a variation of “Elbow Get” on the next possession.
Once again, Cleveland is able to secure Biyombo switching onto James but this time, Patterson does not commit to helping on the drive and James takes Biyombo off the bounce. A hard foul and slight scuffle commence. Point to be taken away is that time and time again, Cleveland knows how to get an obvious advantage and it just depends on Toronto’s execution around the margins (as well as some dumb luck on open shots) to decide whether Cleveland comes away with several points on every possession.
Offense
For much of the important 4th quarter defensive sequences, James drew DeRozan as his assignment. In a micro sense, he did a great job. He denied DeRozan the ball several times and gave him little to no air space, as he played a physical brand of defense that Smith and Shumpert just cannot match. But in a macro view, it hurt the Cavaliers a fair bit.
The first instance occurs with James defending DeRozan off a wide pindown. He doesn’t allow DeRozan to comfortably use his momentum off the screen and after he mucks that up, he ducks under the screen and meets DeRozan before he can turn the corner and finish at the hoop. James forced DeRozan to restart the possession and go into a high pick and roll with Biyombo, which forces Frye to contest a mid range jumper and cause a miss.
All seems good, except after the switch, James becomes sealed by Biyombo. The Butterfly Effect takes place and that advantage forces the already under qualified Smith to box out Biyombo while Patterson tips the ball out. As a result of James playing the 4, Smith is forced to match up against Toronto’s Power Forward in Patterson and the broader effects of James’ decision to defend DeRozan become clear. The possession continues, and after a few swings around the perimeter, Biyombo finds himself the beneficiary of the Cavaliers going small and almost secures an Offensive Rebound of his own.
Cleveland’s decision to have James defend DeRozan would continue to haunt them on the next possession. Once again, it seems as though James does a great job of taking DeRozan out of the play by not allowing him to catch the ball off a staggered screen, however, DeRozan continues his cut and sets a staggered screen of his own (with Biyombo) on the ball for Lowry.
As a result of James refusing to separate himself from his defensive assignment, Biyombo dives to the rim without being tagged. Typically, when DeRozan is without the ball and above the arc, his defenders have no problem mucking up the lane to alleviate any stresses caused by pick and rolls. James’ refusal forces a small Irving to ponder his life choices before deciding against contesting Biyombo’s alley-oop finish.
The next sequence sees James once again muck up an initial action for DeRozan. DeRozan likes to feast on smaller defenders in the post and a fairly common SLOB (Sideline Out of Bounds) play for the Raptors sees DeRozan get a post touch while a staggered screen happens on the weakside. The play is run in a very unorganized fashion on this possession, but this forced some spontaneity out of the (sometimes correctly criticized) Raptors crunch time offense.
DeRozan engages in an impromptu “Snug Pick and Roll” (also referred to as a “Logo PnR”, which is a Pick and Roll that is initiated from the low post as the ball handler motions towards the middle of the floor). DeRozan draws two on the ball and makes a pretty great pass with defenders draped all over him which leads to the boring Biymbo hook shot.
Side Note: It’s incredibly surprising that Snug Pick and Rolls aren’t a typical action in the Raptors playbook as their two dominant ball handlers are both relatively good at gaining post position. It’s a nice way to mix up the vanilla pick and rolls that sometimes stagnate the offense. The Clippers do a great job of this with Chris Paul, who is in some ways comparable (from a play style standpoint) to Kyle Lowry.
The Raptors go to “Chin Pick and Roll” for DeRozan (which you can read more about here and just as the preceding possession, DeRozan draws both Frye and James after a pick and roll. Once again, DeRozan makes a very difficult pass to a diving Biyombo who converts for the slightly easier two points. People get on DeRozan a ton about playing hero ball, and it’s warranted at times. He played a great game and knew when to dish the ball late in the game when he drew a ton of attention.
James was pest-like for much of the 4th quarter against DeRozan, but his annoying nature took an abrupt turn on the next possession.
The Raptors go to one of their patented crunch time sets with “Ram Pick and Roll” but used a slightly new variation where the screener (Patterson) pops out and immediately engages in a DHO. All is fine until DeRozan makes a move towards the lane and creates a pocket to find the rolling Patterson before he is halted by James, who sticks out his leg. The pseudo-issue here is that the Cavaliers had already amassed TWO other kickball violations in similar scenarios earlier in the quarter.
This seemingly inconsequential kick actually seems to affect late-game decision making. I don’t know what the repercussions should be for this dumb non-issue, but I demand some sort of justice.
Raptors finish the possession with a Lowry pull-up after he puts Frye on skates as karma appears to be on the side of Toronto.
Last important possession for the Raptors has them going back to “Ram Pick and Roll”, except now they utilize Lowry as the initial off-ball screener and Biyombo as the on-ball alternative. What’s interesting to note is that Toronto sends Patterson from the baseline to above the arc as Biyombo makes his roll to the rim. In theory, this should force Patterson’s defender (James) to decide between tagging Biyombo’s role and preventing an alley-oop, but surrendering an open Patterson three-pointer or vice-versa. The play got mucked up and Irving bounces of Joseph in the lane as he hits a jumper of his own to seal the Cavaliers’ fate.
In Conclusion
Defensively, the Raptors found a way to win around the margins. Cleveland attacked with James and forced Toronto into some precarious situations with helping in preperation, but Toronto edged that battle out. It’s interesting to track that mini-battle throughout the course of the game as it can sometimes be the deciding factor.
On the other end of the court, James found his way into the spotlight as he locked up DeRozan for much of the 4th quarter. Conversely, he was also the downfall of the Cavaliers defense on several occasions because of his incredible commitment to stopping DeRozan. The other way to look at that is DeRozan gained the respect of Cleveland throughout the course of the game and used it to his advantage late by securing some great looks for Biyombo.
Overall it was a joyous victory for the Raptors as they continue to venture into territory never seen in Toronto basketball history. Enjoy the ride folks, it’s fun.
