Fan Duel Toronto Raptors

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Post-game news & notes: Raptors ‘wouldn’t use the word dominate,’ Smith hurts thumb

Great start, fellas.

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Well, at least the Toronto Raptors have been here before.

A season ago, the Raptors lost the first two games of the Eastern Conference Finals to the Cleveland Cavaliers by a total of 50 points. In that series, they managed to fight back some, take the next two, and ultimately bow out in six hard-fought games, a series that probably felt harmless to the eventual champions but was a great step forward for the underdogs. One year later and one round earlier, they’ve dropped the opener by 11, which, compared to 19 and 31, seems like a step forward.

Of course, the game never really seemed as close as that score would indicate. At one point, the Cavaliers led by as many as 25, and the Raptors’ 905 unit trimmed nine points off the final margin of victory in the closing 3:18. A lot of this was familiar. The Cavaliers started out incredibly hot, the Raptors scrambled to fight back, the Cavaliers rained threes, the Raptors’ next push came up short. There were a lot of things they could have done better, and some things they did well to build on.


It sucks for the optimists to have the wind taken out of the upset sails early on, sure, but this series was never going to not include a game or two like this. The Cavaliers are very good. The Raptors are good, too, and ugly as this was for stretches, there’s no reason to head for the hills just yet.

Let’s look at some positives

Normally I’m not for searching this out in this space, but the timeline was getting pretty negative, so let’s give it a shot.

  • Kyle Lowry was very good. He set a career playoff high with 11 assists, scored 20 points on 13 field-goal attempts, and he had some success with the bench unit. He should be able to get his in this series, and this was a nice sign he can reach the level the Raptors need during this series. Playing 40 minutes in a blowout loss, well, there
  • DeMar DeRozan is likewise going to be able to score in this series. Scoring 19 points on 16 field-goal attempts with four turnovers is hardly the height of efficiency, but the ways he was scoring and getting to the rim passed the eye test in terms of sustainability. He was good in this series last year, too.
  • The Raptors were 10-of-26 on threes, which isn’t bad. Excluding the stars, they were 8-of-21, which is fine-ish. They need that to vary higher to keep up, but it was nice that DeMarre Carroll, Serge Ibaka, and Norman Powell hit some looks. P.J. Tucker also had two or three with a toe on the line. The Cavaliers trapped a fair amount, and these players have to contribute even more than this for the Raptors to have a chance.
  • Raptors 905 looked good again.
  • I’m not going to give a “Let’s look at some negatives” here to depress you.

“There was enough positive things in there. We had, what, 22 assists I think it was? We missed so many open shots, open looks that I know guys can knock down,” Casey conceded before transitioning back into the negatives.

Raptors lacked “force”

There are a few ways to spin the Raptors’ somewhat lackluster approach, and head coach Dwane Casey feels it was a matter of lacking force. The team certainly did look timid out of the gate, but given how much they keep talking up fast starts and being ambushed and playing with that force, it’s not a particularly helpful explanation.

Casey’s other point holds more water. The Raptors wanted to protect the paint first and foremost, and they did a decent job of that. The Cavaliers scored 36 points in the paint to 44 for the Raptors, though they made some of that up with nine more free-throw attempts. Protecting the paint makes guarding the 3-point line tougher, though, and the Cavaliers shot a robust 14-of-34 on those looks, most of them assisted. That will be the point of emphasis for the defense heading into Game 2.

“That was the difference in our game, covering the paint and then getting out,” Casey said. “Defensively, I didn’t think we played with the physicality that we had to in this game…We have to make adjustments  as far as how we want to guard the paint and get out to the three and then offensively get cleaner looks.”

The whistles, by the way, were a product of the Raptors’ own doing, to hear Casey tell it.

The Cavaliers do not fear the Raptors

Here’s the biggest cause for concern, if you’re projecting how things may look if the Raptors correct some of their issues: The Cavaliers really weren’t even flying at 100 percent here. Not to look too deeply into the psyche of opponents based only what you see on the surface – and maybe this is part of their psychological gameplan against a Raptors team that may or may not believe it can pull this off – but the Cavaliers did not look to be taking the threat all that seriously.

To wit: A lob off the backboard more or less to open the game.

Nearly injuring one another celebrating first-quarter runs.

Slamming a couple of beers, Stone Cold style, after being wrap-fouled in transition.

Seriously, LeBron James pretended to drink a beer and J.R. Smith looked ready to join him if he was serious. In a playoff games. Against their supposed biggest threat in the conference.

They also danced to N-Sync at a timeout.

“That’s who they are. They play with that flair,” Casey said when asked if the Raptors got punked a bit. “I didn’t feel that way…I don’t pay attention to that. I think disrespect, you get that back by out-working them and out-playing them.”

But hey, James played almost the entire game until garbage time and was clearly fired up out of the gate, so maybe even if there’s not fear, there’s a level of respect there.

Injury Updates – J.R. Smith undergoes thumb X-ray

J.R. Smith re-injured his thumb at some point and received an X-ray. Ty Lue said after the game that he expects Smith to be okay, but this has to be at least a minor concern for the Cavs. Although Joe Vardon later reported that Smith did not, in fact, receive an X-ray. So, who knows? Smith is their primary DeRozan defender, the thumb kept him out for months earlier, and the injury is on his shooting hand. We’ll probably hear more at practice tomorrow.

Kevin Love and Norman Powell bumped knees in the fourth quarter and Love seemed to be hurting somewhere on his left leg (knee or groin maybe?). Jonas Valanciunas also briefly appeared to hurt himself fouling LeBron James in transition in the second quarter. All of the players involved stayed in the game and appeared to be fine, or something close to it.

Lineup Notes

  • The Raptors’ starters were a -10 in 13 minutes. Not much surprise there. I wonder what people will want to talk about the next two days.
    • That same group with Tucker and Patterson in place of Carroll and Valanciunas, ostensibly one of their best and most versatile defensive lineups, were a -3 in 7 minutes.
    • With just Patterson in for Ibaka? A -5 in 2 minutes.
  • The Lowry-Ibaka-bench unit made a nice run in the second with a +7 mark in 5 minutes.
    • Casey went back to a straight Lowry-and-bench group in the fourth, with the additional tweak of Wright in Joseph’s spot. They were +5 in 5 minutes, though it should be noted that the Cavaliers had a big lead at this point, so there may be some score effects at play.
      • The combination of these two groups, though, had the vaunted James-and-bench group at a -13 in 6 minutes.
  • The Cavaliers’ starters were +15 in 22 minutes. Putting Korver in for Smith was even better with a +9 mark in 4 minutes.
  • Cleveland only risked 3 minutes of non-garbage time without James and played to a +4, minutes the Raptors absolutely have to win.
  • As we learned in the regular-season finale, Raptors 905 > Cavaliers’ end of bench. They even had Jerry Stackhouse with them on the bench.

Look, we’re going to talk more about the starting lineup in the coming days, but the Raptors have a tough decision to make: Try to match up and maximize what each piece can give them in the matchup, or just burst forward with their best foot first. That might mean Tucker, it might mean Powell, it might mean both. It might mean trying what they did here one more game. But I guessed before the series that the Raptors would make a starting lineup change for Game 3, and there was nothing here to move me off of that prediction.

“It was speed and quickness that made the difference,” Casey said of their positive runs. “I thought  Norm and Delon give us that. I thought both of them created, got us open looks. At the end of the day, you’ve got to knock them down, but I thought both of them were aggressive with their speed and quickness and playing with force. That was a positive for us.”

Okay, one more:

  • The Lowry-Powell-Tucker “just care a great deal” trio was a +9 in 14 minutes. They’re a +15 in 51 postseason minutes.

Assorted

  • I’m not on the road, so a continued thank you to the beat writers traveling for the tweets/quotes/updates.
  • Here’s a great one from Serge Ibaka, on getting dunked on by Iman Shumpert: “You know how many times I’ve blocked him? I’m a shot-blocker, it happens.”
  • When the Raptors lose, they sure lose big. Of their 13 playoff losses between this year and last, 11 have come by double-digits. And yes, they’re now 1-714 in Game 1s.
  • Dahntay Jones weirdly got ejected for dunking too hard on Jakob Poeltl. The taunting was a little unnecessary given the same situation, but Jones probably didn’t warrant a second technical. But, you know, whatever. Unwritten rules, or something.
    • Remember last year when Jones got suspended a game against the Raptors, and the lost salary was like $75? Well, he’ll get fined $6,000 for his two technicals, two-thirds of the $9,000 he made with the Cavs this year. This guy does it for the playoff share.

    • As a reminder, 905 general manager Dan Tolzman traded away Jones’ old bones in the D-League for like a fourth-round pick last year.
  • LeBron James is now 25 points from passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for second on the NBA’s all-time playoff scoring list. This guy.
  • Game 2 goes Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Cleveland.
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Photo by David Liam Kyle/NBAE via Getty Images

Photo by David Liam Kyle/NBAE via Getty Images

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