Ugly may be the only answer

Raptors need to rein in Cavs’ James and fast

The Cleveland Cavaliers had eight days off, then they blew out the Toronto Raptors on Monday night. On Tuesday, they decided to skip practice.

The Cavs are not exactly reeling.

The Raptors, meanwhile, are trying to convince themselves that they can hang with LeBron James and company, despite a fourth straight thumping at Quicken Loans Arena in the postseason.

Coach Dwane Casey, before practice on Tuesday, noted that the Raptors and Cavaliers had the same win total in the regular season. Both good teams, he said.

“Hey, they put their pants on one leg at a time, too,” Casey said. “I haven’t seen them jump in and pull them both up at the same time.”

This is true. Although I bet James could put his pants on that way if he really set his mind to it.

But if Toronto is going to do something that they have not yet managed to do, which is win a playoff game against the Cavs on the shores of Lake Erie rather than Lake Ontario, they will likely have to do one of two things: win a track meet or a wrestling match.

Casey, somewhat surprisingly, sounds like he is leaning toward door No. 1.

When the Raptors added Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker at the NBA trade deadline, it gave them extra bodies to throw at James. Between the new guys and DeMarre Carroll, Patrick Patterson and the occasional defence of DeMar DeRozan, Toronto had a host of players with the size and speed to, at the least, get in James’ way. They did precious little of that in last year’s playoff matchup and coming into this series, it seemed likely that Toronto would try to impede, annoy, frustrate and just generally bother James.

Instead, James scored what looked like an effortless 35 points in Game 1 and grabbed a beer from a courtside vendor. If you have ever seen a cat wound a mouse and then take an agonizingly long time to get around to finishing it off, that was James on Monday night. (The Raptors were the mouse.)

So could the Raptors try to ugly it up in Game 2 on Wednesday? More traps on James, more double teams, more attention and some of it even legal?