I am fired up.
After three days off to rest physically and prepare mentally, and after one year to stew in an Eastern Conference Finals loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Toronto Raptors are about to get their chance. It’s not a chance at redemption, or anything like that – last year went about as well as anyone could have hoped, and the Raptors showed incredibly well in taking two games off of the eventual champions. But in the time since, the Raptors have been firmly focused on taking a larger swing at Cleveland, measuring themselves by their proximity to the Cavs and making additions aimed at improving their odds in a rematch.
And they’ve done that. The Raptors are better equipped now to take on any team, but particularly to match up against the unique problems a transcendent offensive roster presents. They are better defensively. Their defensive pieces now come with far fewer offensive limitations. They are healthy. They’re not coming off of 14 games in 31 days with only one day between series. And they are far more experienced, in this specific match up and in the playoffs in general.
If you’re looking for tips on online sports betting, they’ll still tell you to look elsewhere. The implied probability only suggests about a 20-percent chance for the Raptors. Some advanced models like the Raptors a lot more, though they can’t account for Cleveland’s modus operandi-cum-marketing slogan Flip The Switch. Whatever the lines and the predictions, the Raptors have a much bigger puncher’s chance this time around. They’re nothing close to favorites, to be clear, but Raptors fans talking themselves into an upset are far more justified this time around.
If Toronto’s going to shock the Cavaliers, Monday is as good a time as any to start. Winning the series means taking at least one road game, and if you’re a believer in the effect of rust or that Cleveland hasn’t yet turned it on defensively, this represents Toronto’s best chance to win in The Land. It would also prove a major confidence boost for the Raptors to actually win a Game 1, and put to bed out of the gate any questions about whether they’re just paper challengers. Given what’s on the line there, expect the Raptors to be fired up and come out swinging tonight. It’s finally here, and they’re keenly aware.
The game tips off a 7 on TNT and TSN on TV and on TSN 1050 on radio.
—
Normally we’d do a Q&A with the opposing side here, but we just did that in serious fashion for a series preview. So I’ll just direct you to all of our preview content so far:
- Will and Justin Rowan broke the series down on the Weekly podcast.
- Our entire staff gave their opinions in the usual RR roundtable.
- I hit Fear the Sword up with 10 questions to get Cleveland’s side of things.
- I hit up writers from outside Toronto and Milwaukee and looked at Vegas lines and model odds for some additional perspective.
- All of the practice news & notes.
- At The Athletic, I wrote about Raptor Killer final boss Channing Frye and what he means in this series.
- Unrelated to the series, I wrote about Bruno Caboclo’s growth, his relationship with Jerry Stackhouse, and his part in Raptors 905’s championship.
- Raptors Republic readers can get a 20-percent discount off of subscriptions.
—
Raptors updates
How do you match up with an offensive juggernaut? That’s the question facing the Raptors as they look for an approach against the Cavaliers that will give them a chance defensively without sacrificing at the other end, where the Raptors will need to score plenty to keep up no matter how well they defend. Luckily, the Raptors have far more flexibility, versatility, and options this time around than they did last year, and they enter the series in relatively good health.
As a refresher, here’s a look at Raptors lineups that played 48 minutes or more together during the season:
This, of course, does not tell us a lot. The Raptors have more or less moved away from their early season rotations, excising Pascal Siakam, limiting Lucas Nogueira, and acquiring Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker. It’s obviously those last two who matter most, both because they’ve been playing regularly in the new rotation and because they were acquired primarily for the impact they could have on a series like this. Here’s a look at the playoff lineups the Raptors used for seven minutes or more in round one:
There’s a lot of inconsistency there, too, as the Raptors notably made a starting lineup change following Game 3 against the Milwaukee Bucks. Dwane Casey has kept his starting lineup for this series quiet, but logic would dictate a return to the starting group for Jonas Valanciunas, who may struggle against Cavaliers bench groups that deploy rangier centers. That would mean a return to the bench for Norman Powell, a reasonable place for him anyway since he’s the team’s best bet at chasing Kyle Korver around. You could make a case for starting Tucker or Patrick Patterson and sliding Ibaka to center, but that deploys Valanciunas sub-optimally, and Casey has talked up the benefit of having Ibaka start out games on Kevin Love. At some point, Tucker may wind up starting for DeMarre Carroll, too, depending on how the LeBron James matchup goes.
Outside of those questions and tweaks, the rotation should be fairly straight-forward. They’ll keep it to a tight nine unless they need a spark from Delon Wright or foul-trouble help from Jakob Poeltl (who actually matches up kind of nicely in this series), and Tucker, Carroll, and Patterson will split time on James while Patterson and Ibaka share the Love and Channing Frye assignments. The minutes allotments and specific substitution patterns, particularly against the Cavs’ vaunted James-and-bench group, are among the more interesting things to watch in Game 1.
PG: Kyle Lowry, Cory Joseph, Delon Wright, Fred VanVleet
SG: DeMar DeRozan, Norman Powell
SF: DeMarre Carrol, P.J. Tucker, Bruno Caboclo
PF: Serge Ibaka, Patrick Patterson, Pascal Siakam
C: Jonas Valanciunas, Jakob Poeltl, Lucas Nogueira
TBD: None
ASSIGNED: None
OUT: None
Cavaliers updates
The Cavaliers are going to come out like the Cavaliers. This seems reductive, but there’s little reason for a James-led squad to fret an opponent until given good reason to, and so Ty Lue is likely to approach this series like he approached the last. That means something close to a 10-man rotation that can shorten to nine if things get tight, heavy reliance on a James-and-bench unit that’s proven lethal, and toying with a lot of high-octane groups that may or may not be able to defend at the other end of the floor.
As a refresher, here’s a look at Cavaliers lineups that played 48 minutes or more together during the season:
Like the Raptors, though, this isn’t all that useful. First of all, there just aren’t a lot of lineups there. And DeAndre Liggins is gone, making room for Korver and Deron Williams. Here’s a look at the lineups the Cavaliers used for seven minutes or more in the first round:
The most interesting to group to watch out for is Frye with the starters in place of Tristan Thompson, a lineup with an embarrassment of shooting around James and one that should prove challenging for Toronto’s defense. The nice thing about Cleveland’s elite offensive groups, though, is that they employ a couple of lesser defenders (Frye, Korver, Kyrie Irving), presenting opportunities the other way. The Cavs will trap and help off of non-shooters to account for that, but lineups without Thompson are light on rim-protection, and the Raptors have the personnel on paper to play well against them. The really interesting question here is whether Lue will break from his usual rotations if the Raptors strike an early blow.
PG: Kyrie Irving, Deron Williams, Kay Felder
SG: J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert, Dahntay Jones
SF: LeBron James, Kyle Korver, Richard Jefferson
PF: Kevin Love, Derrick Williams, James Jones
C: Tristan Thompson, Channing Frye, Edy Tavares
TBD: None
ASSIGNED: None
OUT: None
The line
Game 1: Cavaliers -6.5
Series: Raptors+375 (implied probability of 21.1 percent)
The opening line for the series has jumped around a bit, oscillating between Cavaliers -6.5 and -7.5. That’s a fairly reasonable number when accounting for the value of home court, suggesting the Cavaliers would be slight favorites in a neutral setting and that games at the Air Canada Centre will be something close to a pick-em. The over under is up at 208.5, much higher than the totals from the Raptors’ last series, a likely bet on the strong offenses winning out over ratcheted up defense (neither team plays particularly fast).
