Cavs close in on another sweep of Raptors
For a brief moment Saturday night, thanks to a late threepointer by rookie OG Anunoby, the Raptors got one hand out of the playoff hole they had dug themselves.
Then Lebron James buried them.
James, who had stepped up all evening, hit an off-balance buzzer-beater from 10 feet to give the Cleveland Cavaliers a nerve-jangling 105-103 win over Toronto, pushing the Raptors to the playoff precipice.
The Raptors were awful early but then fought back. But it wasn’t enough.
“They laid their hearts out,” coach Dwane Casey said of his team, which now trails 3-0 in the Eastern Conference semifinal. “That’s all you ask — in a hostile situation, the other team playing really well, putting ourselves in a position to win.”
But in a must-win game, the Raptors never led. Their season — and perhaps Casey’s job — is on the line today in Game 4 at Quicken Loans Arena.
“We have one more game,” said Casey, perhaps stating the inevitable. “Our pride is on the line. Basically our season’s on the line.”
The future is bleak given no NBA team has ever blown a 3-0 playoff series lead.
James led the Cavaliers with 38 points while Kevin Love added 21. Kyle Lowry had 27 for the Raptors with Demar Derozan sitting out the fourth after contributing just eight points.
Cleveland, which led by as many as 17, found itself tied 103-103 with eight seconds remaining after the Anunoby threepointer. Then James raced down the court and delivered the dagger.
Casey had wanted the Raptors to trap James in his own end. But, taking the inbound pass from Love, he had little in his way as he headed to the Raptors end and, with Anunoby desperately trying to get in his face, put up a floater that banked in off the glass.
“He split the trap and went 100 miles an hour down the floor and lost our guy,” Casey lamented. “We just didn’t execute.”
James does that to you. At 33, he continues to dazzle with a seemingly endless arsenal.
“He’s a great player,” Casey said. “Great players make great plays.”
James was asked afterward, what was the degree of difficulty of the shot?
“The level of difficulty of that shot, it was very difficult,” he said with a smile. “Don’t try it at home.”
It was the fifth buzzer-beater of James’ post-season career. He sank a three-pointer to beat the Pacers as time expired in Game 5 of Cleveland’s first-round series.
“Tie game, down by one or whatever the case may be, I live for those moments,” said James, who also practises for those moments.
In games and during practice, his teammates have seen the best of Lebron. But they are still left amazed.
“I ran out of words a while ago,” said Kyle Korver.
James scored 16 of the Cavaliers’ 26 points in the fourth quarter, refusing to let Toronto complete the comeback.
Toronto played a physical game, harassing and bumping James at every turn. And it showed real grit in mounting one comeback after another, only to have James and the Cavs push them back.
“Casey tried everything and put us in some dilemmas at times,” said Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue.
Still, on a night when Toronto needs to have all guns firing, Derozan wasn’t a factor with a 3-of-12 shooting night. Mike Mcmahon clamours for a free shirt as he watches a second-round playoff game at a Vegas Golden Knights watch party outside T-mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The expansion Golden Knights, Las Vegas’ first major sports franchise, have taken the league and their hometown by storm in their first season.