Cavs tame Raptors again
CLEVELAND — Kyle Lowry walked gingerly to the post-game press conference table.
His pride was surely stinging as much as his ankle.
A rattled DeMar DeRozan, another sizzling three-point shooting night for Cleveland, and a sprained ankle for Lowry. And now the Raptors head back home to Toronto down 2-0 in their bestof-seven Eastern Conference semifinal series after a 125-103 rout by the Cavaliers.
“They’re defending champs, and they’re looking . . . you know . . . that’s what they look like right now,” a brooding Lowry said. “They’re playing extremely well.”
Jonas Valanciunas had 23 points to top Toronto, while Cory Joseph had 22, Lowry finished with 20, and Serge Ibaka added 16 points.
DeRozan finished with just five points, on 2 of 11 shooting.
“It sucks. It sucks,” DeRozan said. “To lose like we did, to play like I did, it sucks. It’s frustrating. Now just having time, having to wait until Friday night to redeem yourself.”
LeBron James had 39 points, passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for second alltime in post-season scoring, and now trails only Michael Jordan. Kyrie Irving added 22 for the Cavs, who were red-hot from long range, making 18 of their 33 three-point attempts to Toronto’s five. Cleveland’s 125 points were a franchise post-season high.
In the shell-shocked moments after the rout, the Raptors said they can take some measure of comfort in last year’s Eastern Conference that saw them rally to win two at home after dropping two in Cleveland.
“We’re in the same place we were in last year,” coach Dwane Casey said. “Until a team wins on another team’s court, it’s not a series. They played well, we shake their hands . . . . But we haven’t scratched the surface of where we can go. We take our butt-whooping and go home.”
Two nights after dropping the series opener 116-105, Casey had predicted more fight from his players in Game 2. They traditionally rebound well after “we get punched in the mouth,” he’d said.
But James and the Cavs threw the first swing. The Raptors looked scattered and scared, digging themselves an early 10-point deficit. They managed to cut the Cavs’ lead to single digits in the second quarter, but by the time Irving scored on a driving bank shot late in the third quarter, Cleveland waltzed into the fourth with a 99-73 advantage.