Recap: Toronto 118, Cleveland 106 (Or, Pre-Christmas Hangover)

Way back on Friday of last week, the Cavs played the Raptors in Cleveland after dropping two Pascal Siakam and Co. in Toronto earlier this year. It probably wasn’t the worst showing of the year for the Cavs, but it was quite possibly the most disappointing.

I’ve always said that the road team has the advantage on Holiday games. Of course the NBA’s Christmas day slate didn’t bear that out, with the home team winning 4-5, but maybe that’s even more true in a winter bound city like Cleveland. It seemed as if, Friday the Cleveland starters’ minds were somewhere else, as they absolutely let the Raptors take it to them in the first half. Were they scared? Uncaring? Distracted? It’s hard to say, but Cleveland played completely uninspired in the first half, allowing a 39 point first quarter, and a 30 point second quarter.

The wine and gold tan and baby blue played a brainless brand of basketball,as they routinely overhelped inside, which led to a series of easy ball swings and a lot of wide open looks from behind the arc, especially from the corners. O.G. Anunoby canned wide open look after wide open look dropping 16 in the first half, and the Raptors went 12-21 from deep. I don’t know if it was by design or apathy, but after throwing multiple bodies at Giannis and Luka the previous couple of games, living with their points, and shutting down everyone else, the Cavs sent everything at Pascal Siakam, leading to just the most wide open triples I’ve seen in the Association in some time.

The Raptors were the worst three point shooting team in the NBA coming into that game, but if it was JB’s plan to gamble on their inability to hit open jump shots, then it failed spectacularly. A random twitter comment I read said, “High school teams don’t double from the strong side corner. I don’t know why the Cavs are doing it here.”

As spastically as the Cavs were playing on defense, the Cavs’ offense wasn’t much better. There was a complete lack of focus everywhere on the court. Most possessions ended up devolving into a seres of isolations. Toronto’s hyper aggressive defense, which we’ve all complained about, is tailor made to disrupt this kind of offense. The Cavs routinely settled for pull-ups, isos, and half-hazard three-point chucks, especially from a completely checked out Donovan Mitchell while the Raptors worked the ball and got good shots. Cleveland committed 11 first half turnovers to the Raptors’ 10, and were outrebounded, but it was really just the lack of effort on offense and the lack of defensive mindfulness that made the difference. Even the free throw shooting was abysmal: 7-13.

Oh, and Okoro and Stevens were on the floor together, which is among the worst two-man combinations in the NBA. Sometimes I want to fire J.B. into the sun.

Meanwhile, Fred Frontrunner VanVleet was calmly canning thirty-foot “you kidding me” triples, as Cleveland watched haplessly. The final play of the half was emblematic of Cleveland’s struggles: a bad Mitchell pass led to yet another Anunoby “swing the ball around” triple with 5.5 seconds left and then Garland got his pocked picked by Siakam to put Toronto up by 16.

The Cavs came out with even less energy in the second half. “SET A SCREEN!” I yelled at the TV as the Cavs’ guards just dribbled and jacked like Chucky Clarkson automatons. My oldest and my mother in law were spending the night due to the inclimate weather and the holidays, and when I threw a pillow on the floor and yelled “GD IT!” I think my whole family was fed up with the Cavs, or maybe me. I couldn’t tell. They all gave up to go play a game. Why do they call them “throw pillows” if you’re not allowed to throw them?

After a 14-4 run over the first 154 seconds, even J.B. had seen enough. Down 26, Bickerstaff subbed out the entire starting lineup after a rage time-out.

Lopez, Love, Osman, LeVert, and Neto jumped off the bench and actually ran an offense designed to free up guys against the Raps’ slap-happy D: hard on and off ball screens to free up players with guys all over them, and back door cuts towards the basket off those screens. Not shockingly, running a non-playground offense worked. Osman played like he always does: shot out of a cannon with crazy energy off cuts and in transition.

And even though the Cavs weren’t scoring a ton, they were at least playing with energy. Love (13/5/5) and Osman (13/1/2) made up the fulcrum of Cleveland’s attack, and Raul Neto was playing in your face D. A miracle from the heavens Lopez banker cut the Toronto Lead to below 20, and yet another LeVert back door cut had it to 16 before the most punchable coach in the NBA, Nick Nurse, called another time out with 3:10 to go in the quarter.

Given that the Raps play defense by whacking dudes in the head like they’re in a three stooges movie, and that Scotty Barnes, Pascal Siakam, FVV, and Nurse are four of the whiniest “what, me!?” people in the association, I just wanted the Cavs to leave bruises this quarter. The Cavs did me one better by actually competing this stretch, cutting it to 13, before the Raptors started roasting Robin Lopez in the pick-and-roll and on switches, and JB countered with subbing out Stevens for LeVert. After VanVleet flopped on a three, he finished the quarter with a four point play, and the Cavs went into the fourth quarter down 98-78.

The bench mod-squad had played the last 9:24 of the third, and a collection of starters finally returned to the floor in the early fourth. Lamar Stevens hit a nifty floater off a close-out drive, and then thought he could iso the next time down and promptly dribbled the ball away. Some of Donovan’s shots started dropping, but he was still doing things like missing consecutive free throws, but the Cavs’ were at least defending: holding Toronto scoreless for the first 3:24, and cutting the lead to 13 before Malachai Flynn calmly drained a ball swing three-ball from the corner and Mobley and the Raps started trading buckets before a Nick Nurse timeout with the craptors up 16.

One of the few bright spots for the starters this game was Isaac Okoro, who despite being a game low -14 (I blame Mitchland and pairing Ice with Stevens) put up 15/3/2 with two blocks in just under 20 minutes this contest. A pair of his freebies, and one of the few shots Jarrett Allen was allowed to take this game had actually cut the Toronto lead to 12 with 6:37 left. A confident right corner triple by the iceman cut it to 11, and a Mitchell trey cut it to 10, but Cleveland couldn’t get stops, and were just trading threes for twos as Anunoby and Scottie Barnes threw their shoulders into Mobley’s chest, knocked him back three feet, and to got jump hooks to drop.

The clock wasn’t on Cleveland’s side, and despite having cut the deficit to 11, only 3:48 remained. When Cedi didn’t come on after a timeout, I knew it was over.  The Cavs couldn’t stop anyone inside, and Okoro wasn’t going to stay hot forever. Why the guy who’d played like a formula one car in the third quarter never saw the floor in the fourth is beyond me. Mitchell and Garland missed threes on the same possession, Okoro Clanked, but the Cavs had to be perfect. They weren’t, and Toronto held on.

I don’t know what the starters’ deal was, but as bad as they were, they weren’t worse than JB’s baffling lineups. Jarrett Allen finished with 11/7/1 and -2, but only played 28 minutes despite just two fouls. Mobley got freaking destroyed by Scottie Barnes who had not been playing well: 10/8/3 and -13 to 25/10/4 a pair of steals and +12. Maybe it helped that the Raptors were able to get their ball to their scoring forwards. Cleveland got worked inside and out. The Raptors shot 19-37 from deep, and OG, Siakam, and Scotting put up 25, 26, and 26 respectively. Toronto out-rebounded Cleveland 45-35.

But Cedi Osman only playing 21 minutes this game was criminal, and frankly Spida’s head was somewhere else entirely. He played one of the worst games I’ve seen from him: 4-16 -12. He just took really terrible shots. Lamar Stevens went 0-2 from deep and 0-3 from the free throw line.

I don’t buy any of the talk that the Raps’ have the Cavs’ number, Cleveland’s just gotta stop being intimidated by them. The Cavs’ bench proved you don’t have to be. But it’s Christmastime, and people’s minds get weird. Maybe some of them wanted to get out of town. Maybe they needed to find that last minute gift idea. Maybe they don’t like getting into the Raptors’ ribs while they’re waiving arms around like windmills. Maybe the Cavs were were depressed out by the brutal weather. Who knows? It was a bummer, but there’s always next game. It’s been a pretty good season so far, and we are, as a fanbase, pretty exacting. See you tonight.