Cavs’ goal: Don’t give up easy shots to Raptors’ stars

INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — Heading into their Eastern Conference semifinals showdown with the new-look Toronto Raptors, the Cleveland Cavaliers have a specific plan for containing one of the league’s best backcourt tandems: Force them to make shots.

Wait, what? The Cavs, who hostthe opener tonight, understand the challenge. They dealt with it during last year’s conference finals, a series that went six games. Their strategy might seem strange, but the Cavs know Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan will score. They just want to limit the amount of easy attempts the duo gets throughout the best-of-seven series.

No layups. Minimal run-out chances. Finish in a crowd. Most of all, the Cavs want to keep the two All-Stars off the free throw line.

“I just think we have to do a good job on both of those guys,” coach Tyronn Lue said Sunday. “Make them make field goals and not free throws, that’s my biggest thing. Keep them off the line and make them make shots. If we can do that it can work out in our favor.”

Lue knows that the rules favor offense. It’s hard nowadays to shut down players, especially these two. Even though J.R. Smith is going to get the tough DeRozan matchup and has experience with it from last season, the best the Cavs can hope for is turning DeRozan, who averaged 27.2 points during the regular season, into an inefficient scorer.

During Toronto’s first-round win against Milwaukee, DeRozan averaged 8.3 free throws and shot 92 percent from the line. Milwaukee held DeRozan below 50 percent from the field just twice— both losses. The Bucks just didn’t do enough to make him uncomfortable. Kyrie Irving will guard Lowry, Toronto’s bulldog point guard whoaveraged 6.1 free throw attempts per game in the regular season, which ranked sixth at his position.

“Kyle is a great pickand-roll player, shoots it off the pick-and-roll a lot, but he does a better job of getting into the paint and getting fouled using his body,” Lue said. “Kyrie has to be smart just staying out of foul trouble and not getting caught up in the nicky-knack fouls and just being smart defensively.”