After two games of getting dominated or punked or pick your word, the Toronto Raptors responded against the Cleveland Cavaliers as the series returned to the Air Canada Centre on Friday. They did. They honestly did. Even without their engine in Kyle Lowry, the Raptors brought more physicality and defensive toughness, played with more urgency, and turned in a much better effort than they had in Games 1 and 2.
“I liked our fight, I love the way our guys competed. There was no backdown,” head coach Dwane Casey said after the game.
It didn’t matter. The Cavaliers juggernaut eventually found it’s gear, the Raptors defense eventually broke down, and Toronto ran out of punches to throw and bullets to fire. Everything needs to go perfectly for Toronto in this series, and without Lowry, that was even more true. They did their best, but their best just can’t hold up to their opponent right now.
“Yeah. We were fighting. We were fighting,” Jonas Valanciunas said. “It was up and down. We were fighting. Honestly, today we were not giving up but they were better than us.”
Where the Raptors go from here is somewhat unclear because of that. The Cavaliers started out fairly slow and not quite disengaged, but not playing with the same force as they did in Cleveland. Maybe the Raptors get Lowry back, hit some more threes, and things turn out differently.
“We got another opportunity,” DeMar DeRozan said of Game 4. “We can’t look at it like history of teams being down 3-0, whatever it may be, we have an opportunity to have another opportunity and that’s all that matters, and we gotta go out and play that way.”
Casey was singing a bit of a different tune, though the difference in approach may not be as stark as the wording suggests. (Though it wasn’t the only point they disagreed on – see the Lineup Notes below.)
“Sunday’s game is about pride,” Casey said. “You don’t want to get swept. Especially in your home building and I think our guys will come out and compete on Sunday…Our team has played with pride all year long and we know who we’re playing against, we know what we’re up against, but think we have a lot of pride in our locker room.”
For others, however the result turns out, Sunday is going to be a bit of a proving ground, maybe as much to themselves as anything.
“We’re just going to show what we’re made from,” Valanciunas said. “Are we going to come in and give up or are we going to come in and fight? Doesn’t matter if we win or lose, we just need to come here and fight, leave everything on the court.”
Others still were talking in far more certain terms, refusing to talk of anything but accomplishing the nearly impossible.
“It’s tough. We’re in a hole. Whatever,” Cory Joseph said. “We’re gonna fight back.”
More talk of 3s
The Raptors have now been outscored 93-21 on 3-point shots in this series. On Friday, the Raptors shot them more freely as they had talked up, but there’s not a lot to be done about a lack of shooting and a lack of success in that regard. And the lack of success, of course, can beget a lack of confidence, which begets a further lack of attempts, and poor shooting over a larger stretch almost makes a lack of threes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
On Friday, the Raptors missed their first 12 3-point attempts despite several of them being decent looks. You just…I mean…an 0-of-12 mark on clean triples is about as unlikely as the Cavaliers starting Game 8-of-8 on a similar quality of shots was. The Raptors didn’t heat up once Norman Powell broke the 0-fer, either, finishing the game 2-of-18 from beyond the arc, compared to 13-of-23 for the Cavaliers.
“Again, the three ball hurt us, knocking down open threes,” Casey said. “I thought we did an excellent job of moving the basketball, finding the right person. It’s something we’ve done, knock down threes all year and for whatever reason it’s escaping us right now.”
That Cleveland continues to shoot so well from outside is tough, but the Raptors at least did a good job limiting their attempts in this one. Defenses have been shown to have more control on the volume of threes rather than the rate they drop at (remember Game 2 when the Cavaliers shot better on contested than uncontested shots?), and keeping a free-shooting team like Cleveland at 23 attempts is a victory. You just can’t give them any space at all, and the Kyle Korvers of the world will find a way to get them off regardless.
“He’s automatic,” LeBron James said. “When he steps on the floor, eyes have to be on him…It helps us out a lot, all of us offensively, because it just creates more space. He’s been huge for our ball club.”
How the Raptors can get more threes into their offense is probably a challenge they won’t be able to address until the offseason. Kyle Lowry is their best 3-point shooter and is hurt. Serge Ibaka and Patrick Patterson appear to be struggling with their confidence. DeMarre Carroll is mostly out of the rotation. Powell and P.J. Tucker, the only players to hit threes in this one, will shoot but don’t command a ton of attention in the corners to help make space. Of the Cavaliers’ nine rotation players, eight shot better than 35 percent on threes this year. That number is only four for the Raptors, and one of them is (and should probably stay) out of the rotation.
“When you see them knocking down threes left and right, getting to their spots, it’s kind of deflating,” DeRozan said. “It’s tough to win a game when you only make two 3-pointers. We was in the game throughout the whole game, but you shoot 11 percent from the 3-point line. You know, it’s tough.”
They have to keep firing them, whoever’s in the game. There’s no way to keep up otherwise. But…
“You’ve got to knock them down,” Casey said. “At the end of the day like I said at the beginning of the year when we were making them, its a make or miss league.”
But damn if these numbers don’t pop. And depress.
Injury Updates – Kyle Lowry’s Game 4 status unknown
Despite being active, Kyle Lowry did not play. Initially a game-time decision after missing practice and shootaround due to a sprained left ankle, Lowry tested it out before the game and was a true last-minute call. The Raptors released on lineup until the last possible moment, and Lowry even joined his teammates on the court for the layup line about 20 minutes before tip-off, only to eventually limp off and not return until after Cory Joseph was announced as the starting point guard.
There wasn’t really much to this. When Lowry didn’t start, it was pretty clear he wouldn’t play. When Delon Wright checked in, it was even more clear. Short of maybe spotting up as a 3-point threat on a late possession in a close game, there probably wasn’t a hypothetical situation in which Lowry was going to be able to go. That the Cavaliers pulled away sealed that, but a late entrance probably wasn’t in the cards anyway.
“He went out and was going to try it,” Casey said of the warm-up. “It was still bothering him. He was limping badly but he just couldn’t go. He wanted to, the trainers and Alex, the medical people were telling him you shouldn’t try to go because he was just, he was in so much pain and he just couldn’t go. He wanted to.”
His status for Game 4 remains up in the air.
Lineup Notes
- The Raptors starters were a -5 in 20 minutes. Considering they were down Lowry, playing with their fourth starting lineup in as many games, and have struggled to start halves basically for two years, that’s actually kind of a win. It was whenever any of their three offensive threats (tonight) sat that things went awry.
- The starters with P.J. Tucker in Norman Powell’s place were +7 in 5 minutes, thanks in part to some hot shooting. Either of those looks let the Raptors do similar things, with a bit of an speed-strength trade-off at that position.
- The starters with Patrick Patterson in Jonas Valanciunas’ place were -7 in 2 minutes. Patterson was, uhh, not good in this one.
- The Raptors were -6 in 2 minutes with a Powell-Serge Ibaka-bench unit, which, you’ll note, is the one with no Cory Joseph, DeMar DeRozan, or Valanciunas. They of course needed a breather – even DeRozan is unlikely to be able to play 24 minutes straight without a quick reprieve – but sitting all three at once was a curious decision at the time and a disastrous one in retrospect.
- That’s on the bench, too, as everyone outside of Tucker and maybe Wright struggled, but staggering the pieces who can create a shot would have helped. That stretch, after Kyle Korver had rained threes to end the third, basically sealed the game.
- Here’s Casey on resting those three early in the fourth: “Production from our bench has to come in and give us a boost and for whatever reason they couldn’t get started. We had to give DeMar, Jonas and Cory some kind of blow…He had what, a minute and a half, I think and he needed that.”
- DeRozan pretty strongly disagreed: “Yeah, I coulda kept going. I didn’t feel like I needed a blow. At this point in time, there’s no need for a rest.”
- For what it’s worth, Joseph referenced “tired legs” late in the game.
- The Cavaliers’ starters were -1 in 17 minutes, which is a little surprising and a nice step in the right direction for the Raptors.
- The starters with Kover in place of J.R. Smith, who had foul trouble, were -7 in 5 minutes, shooting just 2-of-9.
- The LeBron James-and-bench unit that’s struggled a bit was +1 in 4 minutes, shaky enough still for Tyronn Lue to go away from it in the second half.
- A James-Tristan Thompson-bench unit that took its place was phenomenal, playing to a +19 in 9 minutes. Lue credited the success in part to being able to switch more DeRozan pick-and-rolls and give him a different looks than the traps he’d been dealing with all series, which took DeRozan out of his rhythm. Taking Iman Shumpert off the DeRozan island he’d been on with some help probably didn’t hurt, either.
Assorted
- Some nice praise for DeMar DeRozan from LeBron James: “DeRozan was amazing. He gave everything he had. You watch last series when he didn’t have a field goal, he usually bounce back. That’s what great players do.”
- I’ve been posting some pics and quotes and other things to my Instagram story. Follow along there, if you’re a glutton for the punishment. That includes LeBron’s post-game Sgt. Slaughter cosplay outfit.
- Game 4 goes Friday at 3:30 p.m. here in Toronto. Will the Cavaliers be in rough shape with an early tip and a 3-0 lead? Well, they appear ready to get it out of their systems early.
LeBron, as he headed to the Cavs locker room postgame and spotted Drake: “Where are we headed tonight? Margaritas on me” pic.twitter.com/Nt62rNjMGs
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) May 6, 2017
