The Toronto Raptors took an L in the Land to move to 7-3 on the season and 0-2 against the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers. Toronto had their moments – a strong opening quarter and a fourth-quarter run that saw them up seven with four and a half minutes left – but the Cavs worked mismatches and hit tough shots to get the win.
Fans will question the officiating in this game, but this is an unfortunate by-product of the Raptors style and we should not be as incredulous as we are when this happens. We rely on attacking the rim and getting free throws, and those can be hard to come by when you are on the road and even more so when you’re visiting the reigning champs. The technical called on Kyle Lowry was over the top, and the refs let a lot go inside.
Positives
Ball movement on offence
Toronto did a great job of moving the ball and attacking an unset defence. With dominant players like DeMar DeRozan and Lowry, the Raptors can fall into the repetitive “your turn, my turn” offence too often. Against Cleveland, they moved the ball out of penetration to get open threes or open lanes to the rim.
Getting into the paint
Man, Toronto lived in the paint tonight. Even though the refs weren’t giving them the calls, the Raptors continued to get to the paint for good looks. Cleveland leaned heavily on an ice or lock pick and roll defence but Toronto made them pay. Lowry was making great pocket passes to Jonas Valanciunas on the roll if they tried to ice the action too.
Patrick Patterson needs to be more of a threat as the screener in those situations. Too often, Patterson immediately takes the pass and moves it along to the next guy. The problem: the rest of the team’s defence is in place, so the ball gets stuck as the Raptors set up a different action. Patterson has to be ready to shoot the three in that situation to at least make the next man over think about stunting to him. I’m sure part of his passive behavior stems from shooting 22% from three, but not taking those shots mucks up the offence.
Lowry’s play was incredible
The Villanova guard has had an up-and-down start to the year but put together arguably his best performance of the year against Cleveland. He was locked in from tip-off and made up for DeMar’s 10-27 shooting performance. I thought he got beat by Kyrie Irving a couple times, but he was doing everything on offence so the trade-off checks out. Here are just a couple of the standout moments:
- Third quarter: caught a tough pass from Patterson with one-hand, takes a dribble into the paint, and made another pass falling away for a Norm Powell corner three
- Fourth quarter: swipes an offensive board, dribbles out, passes to Terrence Ross in rhythm for a three that puts Toronto up three with six minutes left
- Fourth quarter: Valanciunas gets too deep and passes the ball out to half for Lowry. Clock winding down, Lowry throws an up-and-under move at the defender and hits a straight-away leaner three to put Toronto up seven with four a half minutes to go
Lowry-DeRozan-Ross-Norm-JV line-up
This line-up was really fun, though short-lived. They looked great because they hit their threes, but I thought the ball moved well as every guy outside of Valanciunas was a serious threat to drive. It caused Cleveland to be over-active on defence and I hope we see more of it.
Negatives
Pick and roll defence
Our pick and roll defence was a disaster. Cleveland has great players, but our coverages were not good enough. Kyrie dropped two dimes to Tristan Thompson while being iced by Valanciunas, leading to lay-ups and free throws. The Cavs ran the 4-5 pick and roll and pop at Patterson and Bebe for four straight minutes to start the fourth quarter and we didn’t adjust.
The follow up to that was an unsettled defence, with everyone being concerned about those defenders getting beat. Toronto gave up more open threes as the squad tried to compensate for the lack of initial defence. This, more than anything, is why Toronto lost and something they will have to continue to toy with should they meet Cleveland in the playoffs.
Jumping at three point shooters
At least twice in the first half, Toronto jumped at three point shooters. Matt Devlin tried to say that the Raptors were running the Cavs off the line, but that isn’t accurate. Pascal Siakim is one of the main culprits for this and it is painful to watch. Teams like Cleveland are just so good at making you pay for any mistake. Toronto has to be better in the fundamentals.
Call of the night:
Jack Armstong: How about Valanciunas airing it out? They need a quarterback here in Cleveland, they’ve had about eight quarterbacks from the Browns. (then later, as Matt Devlin reads a CFL promo) I’d like to arrange a game between the Toronto Argonauts and the Cleveland Browns. That’d be a dandy, wouldn’t it?
