First Blood: Raptors-Cavs, Behind the Box Score

Toronto Raptors – 84
Cleveland Cavaliers – 115
Box Score

Cavaliers lead Eastern Conference Finals 1-0

The Cleveland Cavaliers entered Tuesday night’s skirmish with the Toronto Raptors unblemished in the playoffs … they left similarly unscathed, the cleverness of dinosaurs notwithstanding. It was fun. Let’s check out the box score like a bad library book.

22 – The Cleveland Cavaliers entered the Eastern Conference Finals carrying the proverbial rust a team acquires after eight days without televised basketball. It was vital that they begin Game 1 well from a simple accounting standpoint (to avoid a deficit as they acclimated to game pace) and from a morale standpoint (to show the Raptors that they didn’t spend the last eight days playing H-O-R-S-E and eating nachos). Instead of easing into the game with a few light jabs, the Cavs threw a freaking haymaker on the battle-weary Raptors. Toronto started hot, hitting 5 of their first 7 shots. The Cavs spotted the Raptors a few early turnovers, before flexing their muscles and landing some devastating blows to the head at the end of the first and start of the second quarters. When the Raptors cut a 20-point lead to 12 with an 8-0 run in the second quarter, the Cavs responded again, allowing only 16 points in the entire second quarter, and scoring 33 points in each of the first two frames to take a 22-point, 66-44 lead into half. It was a knockout punch that would have made Stipe Miocic proud. 

51 – The Cavs offense has been spooky no matter who does the scaring of late … but it’s especially frightening when Kyrie Irving and LeBron James refuse to be complacent. Irving and James kicked off festivities on Tuesday with 12 quick points in the first half of the first quarter, and they continued the party with a raucous first half. But it wasn’t just that Irving and James were scoring early, but that they were doing so with some chutzpah, attacking the basket relentlessly. All of James’ first half buckets came in the restricted area, where it takes a small rebel army to stop him. Irving was just as vicious, taking the mid-range jumper when it was conceded by the Raptors but going straight into the body of Raptor defenders in transition, something he’s shied away from all season. The two of them set the tone early, and when James and Irving are both attacking in transition, opponents might as well settle into a bunker and pray for help.

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James made his first nine shots, and finished a gruesome 11-of-13 from the field, good for 24 points on 84.6 percent from the field, the third highest field goal percentage of his career and highest ever in the postseason. James joins Danny Ainge, Kevin McHale, Sidney Moncrief, and James Worthy as the only players with multiple 80.0+ percent, 10+ field goal attempt, 4+ rebound, 4+ assist playoff games since 1984 (there have only been 42 such games). Irving pitched in with an indecent 27 points on 11-of-17 shooting (64.7 percent), so that the twosome totaled 51 points in limited playing time (more on that later).

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8 – Kyle Lowry finished 4-of-14 (28.6 percent) from the field for 8 points. For all of its difficulties, stopping the Toronto Raptors is not rocket science; it’s not even bottle rocket science. They have two great guards: Kyle Lowry and DeMar Derozan. They don’t have a ton of shooting or scoring beyond that, and I don’t think they can survive a below average game from either Lowry or DeRozan against the Cavaliers star-spangled offense (at least not without Jonas Valanciunas). DeMar Derozan was feeling it in the first half (8-of-13), making several contested midrange jumpers (which the Cavs are happy to let him shoot, mind you). But Lowry struggled, making only 2-of-9 field goals in the first half and falling into the lazy, mindless shot-chucking that is representative of the worst the Toronto offense has to offer. Lowry was able to smartly create separation on his two other made jumpers in the third quarter, but it hardly mattered. Lowry and DeRozan will need need to score 25+ each and shoot about 100 free throws for the Raptors to win a game in which the Cavs offense performs at a high level.

23 – The Raptors finished the game with 23 total rebounds on Tuesday. That’s not great. The Cavaliers had 45 rebounds, meaning the Raps went an astounding -22 in a category they desperately need to win in the series. Some of the difference had to do with the Cavs shooting 55.4 percent during the game, but the Raptors have hung around in games this postseason by eroding teams on the glass with Valanciunas (again, out for now) and Bismack Biyombo. Biyombo finished with FOUR rebounds on Tuesday, tied for a team high, which I’m pretty sure is a typo, but I keep re-reading it and apparently it’s not. Richard Jefferson had an anomalous 11 rebounds for the Cavs, but it was really a team effort: Thompson had five offensive rebounds, LeBron James had six boards, and Kevin Love had a surprisingly low four. I don’t think this rebounding disparity will persist, but James seemed like he was going to out-muscle every Raptor for every loose ball on Tuesday, and that Thompson, Love, and the aggressive Cavalier guards were going to snag the rest.

+24 – Iman Shumpert of all people finished with the Cavaliers’ highest plus/minus on Tuesday, with a dominant +24. He was relatively quiet statistically (eight points, three rebounds, two assists, one steal in nearly 22 minutes), but he was the avatar for the Cavalier defense, which had maybe its best game of the postseason. His hands were pesky and frenetic, disrupting the Raptor offense. From the time he entered the game until it was over, the Raptor offense never regained its composure, and the rest of the Cavaliers fed off the energy. The Cavaliers had 19 points off 14 Raptor turnovers. Shump also added a few spirit-crushing dunks because he could. Shump and J.R. Smith both played solid defense on DeMar Derozan, who, despite a solid night offensively, didn’t crack the 20-point barrier, a prerequisite for a Raptor victory plan.

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7 – In perhaps the most encouraging stat of the night, the Cavaliers won despite making only seven threes, a number that splits the difference between the season averages of the Memphis Grizzlies and Chicago Bulls, not the record-setting trey-volcano the Cavaliers have been this postseason.

0 – LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and LeBron James played less than one minute combined in the fourth quarter, a great sign for collective fatigue going forward, as the Cavs will have to adjust from one-week to one-day breaks between games.

4 – LeBron James attempted four free throws, a bounty of freebies compared to what Cavs fans have come to expect. That’s not a lot when you consider that James attempted 12 free throws within six feet of the hoop. As a team, the Cavs shot 33 free throws to the Raptors’ 20, but what worries me going forward is the double standard imposed on James. Love was called for a flagrant for elbowing Patrick Patterson while pivoting in his own airspace, yet James was hit in the face multiple times without drawing a flagrant, including an attempted DeMarre Caroll forearm shiver to the jugular without making a play on the ball, and a pointless Biyombo blow to the head after James hooked DeMar Derozan. The refs desperately need to establish ground rules in this series, because it only takes one dismemberment for the Cavs’ title hopes to be thoroughly dashed (CAVS FANS KNOW THIS FROM EXPERIENCE). As long as James’ torso, neck, face, and vital organs are in play every time he drives to the hoop, the Cavs are in serious jeopardy of having one of their players suffer a serious injury.

2 – Mozgov scored! He’s going to make a comeback! I can feel it! (Editor’s note from the future: Timofey Mozgov was never heard from again. Legend says he returned to Russia to live a quiet life as a bear impersonator/sandwich spokesman.)

9-0 – Shhhhhhhhhhh!