Recap: Toronto 110, Cavs 93 (or, Why Can’t Games be One Quarter)

After outscoring the Raptors by thirteen in the first quarter because of ball movement, passable defense, and transition play, the Cavs abandoned most of those things for the next three quarters. This helped the Raptors claw their way to a two point lead by halftime and a seventeen point win at the end of 48 minutes. The Canadian guard were led by Lou Williams who insta-offensed himself to 36 points and lots of smiles from Dwane Casey. Let’s jump right into the game.

First Quarter: Everything worked perfectly in the first quarter. The Cavs came out running and passing the ball to get up the court quickly for quality looks. They opened the quarter on a 12 point run, and it really seemed like a shut out was possible until the Raptors hit a three after about four minutes. Andy started the Cavs out right early in the action and looked so confident hitting a jumper for the first points of the game. He had an extra bounce in his fro that made the Raptors look at him gazingly on each of his made layups. Andy’s best moment came when LeBron James hit him with a behind the back pass that made the Q shake. David Blatt seemed to make it a point to get Kevin Love looks on the left side of the basket. Love hustled a tiny bit more after getting to float some shots.

Second Quarter: Things went bad quickly in the second quarter. After Kyrie Irving hit a three pointer in the opening seconds, the team didn’t score an actual basket, aside from freethrows, until the 6:31 mark. Meanwhile, the Dinosaurs, made some free throws and went on a 17-9 run during this time. For the quarter, the Raptors made four of their eight three pointers, and that’s not counting the one three ball Lou was fouled on. It seemed like every shot they took was going in no matter how defended it was. When the shots stopped falling for the Wine & Gold, the ball stopped moving and the offense went into isolation panic/ turn the ball over five times mode. The talented Mr. Williams drained a last second 27 foot three to put the Raptors up by two going in the half, 56-52.

Third Quarter: The Good guys started the quarter trying to move the ball again and play faster than the Raptors. Love whipped a full court pass to Marion for a layup that made Josh Gordon want to play basketball. Then he came down the court to score a nice hook shot. He finished his mini six point stretch by losing his defender get an easy layup. Kyrie even hounded Terrence Ross around this time. The team used all their collective energy at the 7:03 mark to will a Wild Thing to Love oop at the end of an inbounds set play. The King’s men would score just six points for the rest of the quarter while the Raptors scored 24 points through a combination of capitlizing on Cavs turnovers and making some really hard shots. Toronto ended the third on top, 85-71.

Fourth Quarter: The Cavs started sloppy; however, the Raptors only outscored them 13-8 in the first six minutes despite the Good Guys turning it over four times. Toronto was clearly trying to run the Cavs and seemed to dictate the pace during the quarter pushing it at all times. In a last ditch effort to drum up some points, Blatt put a small ball lineup on the court putting Love at the five slot and LeBron at the four spot. This group moved the ball well when Kyrie wasn’t bricking threes, but they just couldn’t score. The game felt over when DeMar DeRozan dunked off a nice cut while Kyrie was sleeping, but the Love man hates total dominations and took the Cavs on a six point run in one minute to bring the Cavs within 17. Blatt fully realized the situation after seeing the scoreboard still reading 17 down, and the rest of the starters were pulled with a little over four minutes left. The game finished out abnormally slow as 12 freebies were awarded in the remaining time.

The Takeaways

1. The Cavs are in a three point shooting slump. They shot 3-16 for the night and 6-27 against the Wizards. They should be looking for more open threes, and hopefully, when they start to fall, the team will get some games closer to remaining winnable in the fourth quarter.

2. Defensively, this game showed more promise than I’m used to. The Raptors only shot 40% from the field (fouling a ton had something to do with that number), and the Cavs actually seemed to be on the same page for the most part. Kevin tried to be more engaged, and when he was making his shots, he seemed to try to just a little bit more. However, he still moved slowly when closing out on shooters and sometimes acted like he was in a Speed esque scenario where if his arms went above his waist without the ball between them he would self combust. Kyrie looked really serviceable and tried to stick to his man like glue when his guy had the ball. Now that I know he can do on ball defense stuff, I expect some better off ball defense next game. LeBron did his oscillating act of not caring at all about defense and then being the most disruptive force on the floor. Overall, the rotations on pick and rolls are starting to come together and are less confused.

3. The Cavs offense just couldn’t score at times tonight. The bench had just 19 points. The run in the second quarter where they scored six points to the Raptors 24 should have been stopped by a LeBron post up or a Love post up. Blatt needs to manufacture a high percentage isolation play for someone when the team offense sputters instead of just letting guys dribble at the three line. Or, make the team revert back to passing and finding a guy who is open. Tristan is the only non big three Cav besides Andy who took a shot in the final seven minutes of the second quarter. Love, Irving, and LeBron were jacking the ball up.

3. The passing tonight was weird. At times it seemed like guys weren’t passing the ball because they wanted to create some movement. They were passing just because they were told to by Blatt.

4. The turnovers were insane once again with LeBron giving it up five times and the team giving it up 18 times, while the Raptors coughed it up just eight times.

5. This was a Love game. He had 23 points on 8-16 shots, and he seemed more willing to go into the paint after getting early touches on the left side of the floor where he likes it.

6. Chuck Hayes is box score stuffer and pretty disruptive. He had three steals, three assists, and three rebounds to go with three points. His chubby frame sucks the ball away from the hoops when guys go in the paint on him.

7. Holy free throws. The Raptors took 42 of them and made 38. I know I called for the team to foul, but tonight was a little excessive.

8. The Cavs managed to out assist the Raptors getting 24 to their 20, but Lou Willaims killing the Cavs and the Raptors ability to make impossible shots negated any need for them to grab assists.

9. Joe Harris looked bad as he fell for numerous pump fakes and failed to get any points during his time on the floor.

10. Tristan continued to try and alter shots at the rim. He is getting better at moving himself to make a play on the ball without fouling and sort of knows how to come at the right angle to scare a guy without going up for a block.

11. Toronto did a good job of ripping the pace away from the Cavs in the third and fourth quarters. They got down the court every miss or make before the Cavs did, and that definitely wore on the Cavs mentally, as they seemed to often times be scrambling into their defense with no energy to get back up court to run their offense. The Cavs need to figure out a way to stop guards from being able to sprint up the floor so often.

12. I was upset that Blatt didn’t try to full court press during the second half to get back into it. It was as if he waived a flag after the second quarter.

13.LeBron and the rest of the team looked disgruntled while they were sitting on the bench in the fourth quarter. James’ focus on addressing the media and saying the right things is just too much. At what point will he just do the right things on the floor and call guys out on the spot?

Maybe I’m getting used to losing again because this loss didn’t affect me as much as I thought it would. The Cavs were bad, but I’m seeing the resemblance of a defense, and when the Cavs whipped the ball around and dictated the pace they looked like the better team. Toronto won on paper, but the Cavs shoudn’t be scared to face them in the playoffs.