CAVS DRAW FIRST BLOOD
LeBron does a little of everything, and gets plenty of help from his supporting cast to leave Raptors in all-too-familiar position
Raptors let Game 1 slip through their fingers in OT loss to Cleveland,
Be who you are. That has been the mission of these Toronto Raptors all season, after changing the definition to begin with. And once they accomplished that — once they became a 10-man whirling puzzle that could take teams apart — the biggest test arrived Tuesday. Cleveland and LeBron James had treated the Raptors like bothersome little brothers for years. But the Raptors had grown. This was their chance to prove it.
And it was still the same old terror, and it felt like more than just a Game 1 hung in the air. After narrowly avoiding a crushing loss at the buzzer, Toronto looked cooked in overtime. The Cavaliers had a lead as big as six, featuring J.R. Smith drilling an open three and staring at the Raptors bench.
The Raptors got it back to 113-112 thanks to Kyle Lowry, with under a minute to go. Kyle Korver missed a three, and Jonas Valanciunas and Serge Ibaka couldn’t secure the rebound. And DeMar DeRozan defended LeBron into ... a bad miss? What? Sixteen seconds left.
But DeRozan took too long on the last possession, and Fred VanVleet missed his second potential game-winning three of the game with 3.4 seconds left. Cleveland took Game 1113-112 in a series that will only serve to define all the progress than this Raptors franchise has made.
That’s all. Oh, they will see this in their dreams.
There were so many chances to blow the game open, and the Raptors hadn’t taken them. And so, the nightmare: a team with LeBron in the clutch versus a team that, for all its success this year, underperformed when the games got tight. At the end of regulation LeBron tied it 105-105 on a fadeaway jumper over OG Anunoby with 30 seconds left. OK. Who are you, Raptors? Toronto endured a nightmare. VanVleet had an open three, from DeRozan. Missed. DeRozan’s follow was halfway down, and popped out. C.J. Miles blew a putback in traffic. Jonas Valanciunas missed on a left-handed follow. There were 0.6 seconds left, and it was Cleveland ball, and Valanciunas fell to his knees like it was the end of a movie.
And LeBron, at the buzzer, got open for a one-footed jumper. And missed, front rim. He was only 3-for-11 in the fourth.
There were worries, if not from the very start. After three quarters, the Raptors had led more or less the entire game, but hadn’t been able to achieve escape velocity. In the first half the Cavaliers, who finished the first round two days prior, looked ready to be blown out. In the third, Valanciunas played like a gladiator; the double-digit lead came back down. It was a threepoint game headed to the fourth.
Missed opportunity. The Cavaliers, who have mixed and matched their talent all season, started small, with Love at centre and Smith at small forward, around LeBron and a backcourt of George Hill and Korver.
Asked before the game whether all their changes had been matchup-driven or just trying to find something that worked, Cavaliers coach Tyronne Lue said, “I’m just trying to find out what works for us, who’s playing best for us at that time. And as far as matchups go, playoffs are matchup driven.”
But favourable matchups were everywhere. When LeBron wasn’t on the floor the Cavaliers looked like a 30-win team, and that might be generous. Last year Love was Cleveland’s third-best player: now he is their only other all-star. In the warm-up Love missed all kinds of shots: short turnarounds, 15-foot jumpers, long twos, and threes. Love’s injured left thumb, which helped limit him to 33 per cent shooting in the first round, seemed a problem.
And still, despite a 14-point lead after a quarter, it was a game. The Raptors needed to be ruthless: instead, they made enough mistakes to let the Cavaliers back in. The bench clunked, as it had too often against Washington. Turnovers multiplied. Cleveland put forward Jeff Green at centre instead of Love; he was effective. And with LeBron orchestrating, too many Raptors started running around on defence, over-committing, like they were seeing ghosts. Maybe they were.
At halftime it was 60-57 for Toronto, and the worst sign may have been this: LeBron was Cleveland’s third-leading scorer.
What an opportunity. In a game where LeBron settled into playmaker mode, rather than god of thunder mode, and a game where Love’s injured thumb hung over the game, it was this. Nobody worried about the Game 1 curse this time. But win this game and you would put pressure on Cleveland. After their narrow Game 7 escape against an Indiana that failed to grasp its opportunities over and over again, Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert started a tweet with, “News of the Cavs death was greatly exaggerated.”
He was hardly exaggerating. LeBron’s future is uncertain, but nobody thinks he’s staying with this mess in Cleveland. A chunk of the roster has no loyalty to the program beyond what was built since the trade deadline. Put pressure on them, and maybe the Cavs splinter.
Or, you splinter yourself. The Raptors are the best team in the East. The Cavaliers are vulnerable. And for Toronto the pressure, one game in, is officially on.
Maybe this is who they are: the little brothers, out of their depth. Only they can change it.