Valanciunas upgraded
It probably doesn’t mean a ton just yet, but the Raptors have upgraded injured center Jonas Valanciunas from out to doubtful for Game 4 on Monday. It seems like a serious long-shot he’d play, but the upgrade serves three purposes: It gives the Raptors the option to play him if he’s suddenly much better the day of the game, it signals Valanciunas could be ready a little later in the series if not Monday, and it forces the Cavaliers to at least think about how they may deal with him if and when he returns.That last part is something they really haven’t done yet, according to Ty Lue.
Dahntay Jones suspended, Dwane Casey fined | Raptors Republic
The NBA has fined Toronto Raptors head coach $25,000 for public criticism of officiating following the team’s Game 3 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday.
In his post-game press conference, Casey initially appeared to be trying to bite his tongue, but he reached a point where he apparently decided it was worth the hit to his wallet to unload. And unload he did.
The Raptors had his back, with several players also complaining about the refereeing (as well as every person on Twitter). Nobody was willing to talk about it on Sunday, though.
Raptors give Cavaliers first real playoff test: Arthur | Toronto Star
The Raptors probably needed that game, too, to actually believe in possibility. They liked their matchups with Cleveland all year, but it’s better to see it happen.
“It’s not like we’re playing against a Dream Team of players,” says DeMar DeRozan, who had one of the finest games of his career. “Anybody is capable of being beaten. We showed it all year.”
“LeBron gonna be LeBron, best player in the world, but if you knock out some of the supporting cast . . . ” says Carroll.
“We had to get them out of a comfort zone, and when that happened it’s almost like magic,” says Scola. “They miss shots that are wide open, they miss layups that are wide open.
“These are players who are capable (of playing) this way. It’s just more about how can we put them in a non-comfort zone? They’ve been in a great confidence place. We take them out of that, and how do they react to that? How can we make them not feel good about how they play? We have to make them ask themselves questions, which they haven’t done yet. It doesn’t guarantee anything, obviously.”
No, of course not. Toronto has to win Game 4 to make this matter, and Cleveland seems confident they’ll be fine.
DeRozan at the top of his game vs. Cavaliers | Toronto Sun
“We keep repeating the same thing,” said Luis Scola at practice on Sunday.
“DeMar and Kyle, those are the guys that got to make the right play. We don’t need them to score every play, we just need them to play well. both of them were playing great and the outcome was completely different,” Scola said.
Head coach Dwane Casey agreed the DeRozan played a cerebral game.
“He did, I thought he didn’t get sped up in the game. I thought he kept it under control,” Casey told Postmedia in a quiet moment.
“I thought that was huge and it’s going to be huge going forward because now you’re going to see them into him more, more double-teams, more LeBron … He’s doing a good job of picking and choosing his moves.”
DeRozan said part of his improved shooting can be attributed to the fact that his bothersome thumb injury – one that played havoc with his feel for the ball earlier in the playoffs – is less problematic these days.
“It’s not as bad as it was, it was pretty bad, honestly, I told myself I wasn’t going to talk about it until whenever we were done,” DeRozan admitted to Postmedia.
“It’s a lot better, every day it gets better, but it’s still there. I still be conscious of hoping it doesn’t get hit. I still try to get comfortable with it every single day, just dealing with the pain,” he said.
For Casey, it wasn’t just DeRozan’s offence that impressed in Game 3.
“I thought also, his attention to his defence was pretty good. He was into them without fouling. Just overall, his overall play was excellent,” Casey said.
Oscar-worthy flops tough call in NBA playoff cauldron: Feschuk | Toronto Star
It’s possible to kill both because a bad call is in the eye of the beholder. As egregious as Saturday’s LeFlop happened to be, there wasn’t much chatter in Toronto about how Saturday’s fourth quarter saw Raptors all-star Kyle Lowry take a dive worthy of the Olympic platform. Lowry’s Louganis-worthy piece of performance art fooled the referees into whistling Iman Shumpert for an offensive foul, even though video replay suggested Shumpert was guilty only of setting a legal screen. And how does one explain the sheer disparity in the number of fouls levied in the series? Consider that Cleveland was the vastly superior team in blowouts in Games 1 and 2. The more aggressive team, the superior team, usually gets the better end of any given whistle, even if Saturday was an exception.
“As I grow up and I start understanding basketball in a different way, I believe that refs are . . . going through the same process we are (as players),” Scola said. “We’re trying to play very well for our coaches to play us more, for our contracts to be bigger, for fans to like us. (Referees) go through the same process. There’s a lot of people watching them. They review each one of the plays. They get punishment for bad calls. They get rewarded for good calls. Their contracts are on the line. The amount of games they call are on the line.
“They want to make the right call. Are they going to make mistakes? No question.”
In a bang-bang game that’s played in a blur, they’re going to make mistakes. And they’re going to be unsure, which is why fans cry injustice and coaches lobby and players sell calls.
“Everybody sells calls,” Carroll said. “But when we got to the playoffs, our guys haven’t been selling calls as much as they did (in the regular season) because we don’t get ’em. We learned that in the first series. They’re not going to give us those calls. But they give certain people certain calls.”
Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t. But here’s what we know for sure: Three games into the Eastern final, the officials have ignited incalculable outrage while determining precisely zero outcomes.
@cavs Forward @kingjames in the training room prior to Game 3 of the @cavs vs. @raptors series.
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Cory Joseph confident Raptors can keep up with Cavs | Toronto Sun
“That’s a foolish question, man. Come on,” Joseph said not holding anything back the day after his Raptors won Game 3 and now trail in the best-of-seven Conference Final series 2-1. “I’m allowed to tell you that’s a foolish question. There was never one moment in my mind,” Joseph said shaking his head in disgust.
Joseph is not a player that reads the papers or monitors twitter before and after games like some of his teammates. He knows what it’s like to be in the middle of a playoff series. And if there’s one thing he has learned in his five years in the league, it is that once in the playoffs, every game is different.
“Let me tell you something,” Joseph began just getting wound up again. “Five years I have been in the league. I went to the conference championships four years. My first year as a rookie I didn’t play that much. I really didn’t play at all basically. We went up 2-0 on OKC and I know this is a whole different series, whole different everything. They came back and won the series 4-2. The first game we blew them out. We beat them pretty good both those games.”
The point is it doesn’t matter how a series starts or who gets the first punch in during the fight, it’s how it ends and Joseph knows this one is far from ending.
“Every game is different,” Joseph said still unable to comprehend a professional athlete second-guessing himself because of a bad start to a series. “I don’t listen to that crap. That’s complete crap. Are we questioning can we play with these guys? What the hell is that? I think that’s pretty dumb to question if we think we can play with these guys. We’re here. We are the No. 2 seed. We have worked all year for this. Why wouldn’t we?”
LeBron James, Cavs try to take control in Toronto: 5 things to know | CBSSports.com
All players say they have confidence, but the Raptors have earned some. They’re the only team to beat Cleveland in the playoffs, and now they’ll try to build on that. Saturday was a massive moment for the franchise, which is in the conference finals for the first time in its 21-year history. It was also meaningful for the players, who are all aware that the Cavaliers are the overwhelming favorites.
“We just showed we can win,” DeRozan said. “Anybody can be beat at the end of the day. It’s not like we’re playing against a Dream Team of players.”
“Before [Saturday’s] game, we were in a position like, ‘Let’s make them look human. Let’s make them look like a team that could be beaten,'” Scola said. “Because they looked, like, unbeatable up until that point. Nobody really put them in that situation. So that was what [Game 3] was all about.”Throughout the regular season, Cleveland was not known as a particularly cohesive team. That completely changed in the playoffs. In all likelihood, its 10 postseason wins were much more telling than this one loss. Toronto, though, has to hope that it can rattle the Cavs and make them doubt themselves a little bit.
“We talked about it after Game 2,” Scola said. “We gotta get them out of their comfort zone. And that’s what we did. When that happened, it’s almost like magic. They start missing shots that were wide open. They start missing layups that were wide open. They start not getting a couple calls here and there. Momentum shifts, the energy shifts.”
The Raptors are here despite playing poorly for much of the postseason. They are here despite four-fifths of their starting lineup dealing with injuries and their two All-Stars slumping at what seemed like the worst possible time. DeRozan said that these tough times have revealed the character of the team, and they’ve grown from their seven-game slugfests against the Heat and Pacers. Toronto does not have many advantages against Cleveland, but it does have more recent experience persevering when things have fallen apart.
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Raptors’ DeRozan welcomes LeBron challenge in Game 4 | Toronto Star
In Game 3 of the conference final against the Cleveland Cavaliers, in Games 5 and 7 of the semifinal against the Miami Heat, and Games 5 and 7 of the first round against the Indiana Pacers, the longest-serving Raptor has dominated, putting up numbers befitting a big-game performer.
In those games, DeRozan has averaged 31.6 points, shot 42.6 per cent from the floor, 98.7 per cent from the free-throw line and, most important, the Raptors have won each time.
“I like the moment,” DeRozan said Sunday as Toronto, trailing the Cavaliers 2-1 in the best-of-seven series, went through a light workout ahead of Monday’s Game 4.
“I like being under the pressure. What people call pressure . . . I feel like it’s ‘you’ve got nothing to lose.’ I don’t see it as pressure at all. When your back is against the wall and you’re supposed to fold? That’s when I do the opposite. It’s more comfortable for me.”
And comforting for the Raptors, who basically salvaged their season behind DeRozan’s 32 points in Saturday’s 99-84 win over Cleveland. His performance certainly caught the attention of the Cavaliers, who switched LeBron James on to DeRozan for a handful of late-game possessions. It’s sure to be a tactic they employ in Game 4 if DeRozan gets off to another torrid start.
“(Saturday) was one of those challenges that I felt like, I needed to take control of it,” James told reporters Sunday. “The guy has been shooting the ball extremely well, especially to open the game up, and he played a heck of a game last night. I just wanted to get my crack at him.”
Game 4 Preview: Raptors vs. Cavaliers | Toronto Raptors
Full 48 Minutes
After showing stretches of keeping up with the Cavaliers in Games 1 and 2, the Raptors went into Game 3 talking about the importance of playing for a full 48 minutes. Closing quarters strong and not having mental lapses were near the top of the to-do list for Saturday. Toronto started strong in Game 3, and didn’t let up. Setting the tone early, there were moments where Cleveland fought back, getting within five points in the second half, but Toronto managed to stave off every Cavaliers run.
“We learned from the last two games,” DeMar DeRozan said. “That’s when the lapses of the games started with us, and they took advantage of it in the first two games. We tried to withhold that [in Game 3] and tried to finish off the quarters strong. That’s what we did. We had a rhythm, and we came out with the win.”
Now that they’ve snapped Cleveland’s 17-game postseason winning streak against Eastern Conference opponents, the Raptors know the Cavaliers will come out looking to control the tempo in Game 4. Continuing to dictate the tempo will be key for Toronto.
Game 3 point differential flow; Raptors strike back #wethenorth
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Podcast Episode 103: Roadblocks or Speedbumps? | Cavs: The Blog
Nate Smith, Tom Pestak, and David Wood talk the week in Cavs: the Game 3 Loss, good and bad Kyrie, the Under-respected Raptors, the surprising Thunder, and the Cavalier adjustments. We check in on Tom’s many sales adventures, Nate waxes absurdist on the nature of basketball, and he has a reaction to the Biz that may require medical attention.
Dahntay Jones suspended for Game 4 | Fear The Sword
Jones actually has a history of striking opposing players below the belt and generally annoying the opposition. Most recently, while a member of the Clippers, he bumped Warriors forward Draymond Green while Green was in the middle of a postgame interview. Green stared Jones down as he walked off the floor.
For the Cavs, this really doesn’t matter. Jones has only played 11 minutes in the postseason and all of his minutes have come in garbage time. If Game 4 is again a blowout, the Cavs will have to play someone else at the end of the game.
“On the floor, I don’t have friends.” – @bismackbiyombo
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Bismack Biyombo was the hero the Raptors needed in Game 3 | Raptors HQ
“It gives us the confidence. It gives us energy. It gets the crowd into it,” said Lowry of Bismack’s play. “Bis does a great job of just getting the crowd into it, and the crowd gets us into it. We feed off of that energy. Four blocks, 26 rebounds, there’s no substitution for that.” To look at Lowry’s line of 20 points (on a rejuvenated 7-for-13 shooting, including 4-for-8 from three), six rebounds and three assists, is to see the benefits of that energy. With the Cavaliers pressing late and getting the lead down to five points, it was Lowry who tossed up that pray of an alley-oop. And it was Biyombo who brought it down, kicking off a mini 6-0 all-Bismack run that put the game away. Not even a shot to the groin in the dying seconds could slow Biyombo down.
“Just giddy up,” said coach Dwane Casey when asked what he had to say to Biyombo pre-game (and inadvertently summarizing the entire Bismack experience). “You don’t have to say anything to Bis. Bis is a self-starter. He understands what he does. He’s a kid that just plays hard. He knows who he is.” There’s a perfect simplicity to that assessment. It’s a clarity of purpose that the Raptors, who sometimes look like they’re thinking too much, can really use at times. It came in handy last night as they ran away with the game.
Biyombo isn’t in the Bizness of making friends | TSN
An undersized centre at 6-foot-9, Biyombo will never be the most talented player on the court, not in the NBA. His game is not about finesse and isn’t likely to earn any style points. Off the court, he’s one of the kindest, most respectful and mild-mannered people you could ever have the pleasure of meeting. He’s impossible not to like. On the court however, he transforms into a completely different person – a relentless, take-no-prisoners irritant. If that’s how you know him, as a player, as an opponent, he’s probably not getting your Christmas card. He’s not going to win many popularity contests among his peers and, to his credit, he couldn’t care less.
It’s what makes him the player he is, a player that’s endeared himself to a fan base that appreciates hard, physical play as much or more than any other; a player that has become invaluable to a conference finalist.
“Oh, I knew that,” said the 23-year-old, told DeRozan didn’t exactly look forward to their meetings. “He actually told me that personally, that he really hated me, until he got to know me as a person, and then he turned out to love me. I’m sure there was a lot of feeling-out there, but until you really get to know the real side of me, then you know who I am. But on the floor I don’t have friends.”
“I mean, [it’s] probably because of my approach to the game,” Biyombo continued. “I have friends, and once the game starts, I probably won’t talk to you until the end of the game. That’s just me. I’m just trying to win the ballgame, and I’m just trying to compete. At the end of the day, when the ball is up, I’m not trying to make friends. I know we’re friends, we’re cool, but we can always be cool after the game, too.”
“But at the same time, that’s the other side of me. Once basketball is over, off the court, then I’ll go back to myself. I go back to being me and have fun and enjoy life.”
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NBA Playoffs: Cavaliers vs. Raptors Game 4 preview | Fear The Sword
Will we see a more aggressive LeBron in Game 4? After being somewhat passive throughout the playoffs (while still being able to get his), he’s hasn’t really went into full-blown attack mode that we’ve seen out of him in the playoffs before. Tyronn Lue said he should have went to LeBron more in Game 3, as he only took 17 shots. If Irving struggles early like he did in Game 3, expect LeBron to attack relentlessly, considering the Raptors have had no answer for him all series.
Cleveland Cavaliers at Toronto Raptors: Monday’s Game 4 preview | Toronto Star
Patrick Patterson vs. Kevin Love
Luis Scola starts and eats a few minutes to open the first and third quarters for the Raptors, but Patrick Patterson is the primary power forward. He did an exceptional job of not giving Kevin Love much space in Game 3, so good that the Cavaliers starter watched the fourth quarter from the bench. Toronto needs to take Love out of the game again.
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