Cavs hold court in lopsided opener
CLEVELAND— Well, at least LeBron James didn’t drink the beer. He didn’t swipe that beer from a courtside server in a celebratory moment after getting fouled, as comfortable as if he was in his living room, and chug a beer right there in the third quarter. While we’re at it, at least he didn’t play the game wearing sunglasses. Or left-handed. Asked about it, LeBron said, “I’m not much of a beer guy. If she’d had some red wine, I probably would have definitely took a sip.”
“That’s who they are, they play with that flair,” said Raptors coach Dwane Casey, after the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Toronto Raptors 116-105, in a Game 1 that wasn’t that close. “Disrespect: I think you get that back by outworking them and outplaying them.”
Really, it wasn’t so much disrespect as disregard. Remember what LeBron said last year? Remember, after the Raptors had tied the Eastern Conference final 2-2, and then the Cavaliers blew them out by 38 in Cleveland, and LeBron said, “I’ve been a part of some really adverse situations, and I just didn’t believe this was one of them.” Of everything that was said, that was the truth of the series. LeBron was never worried, and never really had a reason to be.
“It seems the same,” said Raptors guard Kyle Lowry, who finished with 20 points and 11 assists. “They get big spurts, and we fight back, and they do another big spurt. We gotta find a way to limit the spurts . . . to not let them get going and get everyone involved and getting the crowd involved.”
One year later the only thing that has changed is now the Cavaliers are the defending champs. Toronto came in with their deepest team, and with a few days off to rest and prepare, unlike last year, when they dragged themselves in with dead legs. Cleveland was vulnerable: their defence was crap. It was all there.
And then the Cavaliers made a joke of it. The show started with a crowd favourite around these parts: it’s called, the Toronto Raptors getting flat-out punked. It wasn’t just that they missed open shots, but they did. It wasn’t just that they were throwing nervy passes, but they were. It wasn’t just that Patrick Patterson travelled on a play where he was open at the three-point line with no Cavalier within 15 feet. But he did.
It was that Cleveland played like they knew they were the best team, and screw these guys. You could see it in LeBron’s first-quarter alley-oop dunk off the glass, in which he called for the ball at midcourt off a turnover, from Kyrie Irving. Irving said “I distinctly remember him pointing up behind me. I could have easily laid it up, but to throw it off the board like that in a playoff game, an intense game . . . just another play in the book for me and Bron.”
He could have easily laid it up, but screw these guys. Let’s send a message. You could see it in Iman Shumpert dunking over Serge Ibaka and screaming. You could see it all night long. The Cavaliers cranked up their defence, and the Raptors couldn’t hang with them. They pulled back to within 41-39 behind Kyle Lowry, and by halftime it was 62-48, despite Cleveland shooting 43 per cent. Toronto got to within eight in the third quarter, and then Irving and Kevin Love ate them up some more. LeBron opened the fourth quarter with a crossover step-back jumper, swish. He was practically dancing, on the way to 35 points. He was having fun.
“We got up 22, 23, and we made a couple plays, hero plays I call them, and then they scored five, six in a row and we had to get back serious again,” said Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue.
“Once you let them see the basketball go in, it’s kind of contagious for them, and that’s what happened for them tonight,” said DeMar DeRozan, who had 19 points on 16 shots. “We gotta put defence in the game for 48 minutes.”
“We already got that foot in the hole,” he said.
Yeah. The Raptors are down 1-0, and miles behind. If they were ever going to make this something real — if they were going to force the Cavaliers to worry that the next shot needed to go in, that the next pass needed to get there — the first step was to show Cleveland the basic competence of staying in the game. Nope.
Maybe this was inevitable. The Raptors can shoot better, be more physical, move the ball better, defend better. They can adjust. But here’s the thing with Cleveland: they have faced such bigger obstacles than this. Last year they were down 3-1 to a 73-win team, and they won a title by holding them to 89 points in Game 7 on the road. LeBron isn’t scared of Kevin Durant, or Steph Curry. Toronto? C’mon. And his teammates, orbiting in his gravity, aren’t either.
And why should they be? Before the game Casey was asked about last year, and he detailed all the problems LeBron creates, one by one. He said, “And nothing has changed, except they’ve added Kyle Korver on the weak side, who is a career 40, 40-plus per cent shooter.”
One game down. A lot has changed, and nothing has.