Game #72: Toronto Raptors 129 - Cleveland Cavaliers 132

[The Great One]

LeBron was asked what his motivation was in Year 15 of his career.

His response? pic.twitter.com/W7ePYrgls3

— ESPN (@espn) March 22, 2018

[planetmars]

Hate that we lost but man Cleveland had to play a perfect game and they still only won by 3. Defensively we weren't great. I'm blaming the schedule for that. But really the Cavs just couldn't miss anything (and it's not the same as it was in the playoffs). The Cavs worked hard for their shots. We were draped all over them for a lot of those makes.

Offensively we were pretty sharp though overall. Fred missed some good looks from the corner. If he made one or both we probably would have won. DeMar had a pretty mediocre game too. Lowry was basically invisible in the second half too. Did he take any shots at all?

Didn't like that we gave up that big lead of course, but the Lebrons had a great run in the 3rd. Ibaka was also a disaster in that last quarter. 3pt foul on Lebron. Missed a couple of shots he should have made. Not even sure why he was playing. What's he doing playing on a B2B?

Sucks a bit that Lebron has some confidence now, but I'm still feeling good about them.

[Mitch P]

To defend myself here: I gave him the A because I felt like the Cavs, especially late, focused on taking away DeMar, and in the past he's embraced the defense too much and forced his game, and he didn't tonight. He didn't have a big game, but he also didn't take anything off the table in the face of a defense that wanted to stop him.

Can't disagree with that. But I think we need our big star to be at least 2/3 of a Lebron and he wasn't. He can certainly do better though and all of the comments about fatigue and schedule are certainly valid. We might all want to stop watching until the playoffs

[Hotshot]

VanVleet got the Bron dap

(Also, watch K. Love ��) pic.twitter.com/5CJWiyF0eo

— Bleacher Report NBA (@BR_NBA) March 22, 2018

lol wtf

Traitor lol

[MixxAOR]

VanVleet got the Bron dap

(Also, watch K. Love ��) pic.twitter.com/5CJWiyF0eo

— Bleacher Report NBA (@BR_NBA) March 22, 2018

lol wtf

[007]

My belief of whether or not we can beat the Cavs has not changed after this game: we can do it, but we are definitely the underdogs

[slaw]

Wow. Missed the third quarter. What the hell happened? Raps seemed to be in control and then it was tied when I turned it back on. Looked like they ran out of gas late. Cavs made some tough shots. Derozan was meh. Lowry needed to be more involved late. Still, good game. Cavs deserved to win.

[Barolt]

Anthony Doyle in the "Quick Reaction" space gave him an A. Yeah.....not sure what game he was watching.

To defend myself here: I gave him the A because I felt like the Cavs, especially late, focused on taking away DeMar, and in the past he's embraced the defense too much and forced his game, and he didn't tonight. He didn't have a big game, but he also didn't take anything off the table in the face of a defense that wanted to stop him.

[rightsideup]

did not lebron deserve a flagrant on debo?

[white men can't jump]

I don't think you can really come to any major conclusions from this game.

They were missing four guys (Hood, Nance, Thompson, Korver).

We were only missing Miles but were on a B2B and 3rd game in four nights.

On the plus side I do think the first 2.5 quarters were good evidence that our system will work in the playoffs.

On the minus side, for those of you saying LeBron had to be historic for them to win... That's what he does. He is still the puzzle we have to solve if we're going to make it out of the East.

Not only was it our 3rd in 4 nights, and the 2nd night of a road back-to-back, it was also the 2nd back-to-back in a week of 5 games of 7 nights. We haven't had a more than a day off since we played Detroit on Feb 26th. Since then we've only had 2 multi-game home stands, and both were just 2 games long. We've had to travel for almost every single game since that date as well.

They have this 3-game home stand now, but just a day's rest between each game. Still, should help settle things after a crazy stretch. Then they three days off before going to Boston on the 31st. Then another couple days off before playing Cleveland. Hopefully they can use this stretch to rest a bit and get some practice in. OG probably hasn't had a real practice since coming back. The D has slipped a bit the since the Pacers game. Guys all look a little fatigued.

[Mitch P]

Another one that no one has mentioned about is DeRozan. He COMPLETELY disappeared in that game.

Anthony Doyle in the "Quick Reaction" space gave him an A. Yeah.....not sure what game he was watching.

[sanyo]

In games like this and playoff games. You need your stars to play like stars. Raptors supporting cast was great tonight. DeRozan was invisible though. He was deferring to the other players and this guy did not play last night.

Lowry also didnt do much in the 4th. He was 6 for 9 from 3 and I dont think he took one 3 in the 4th...

I love that these guys are distributing more, it's actually better cause we went down to the last minute today instead of losing by 20 which is usual against the Cavs...but with no Miles, we needed Lowry to shoot a few more 3's, especially when the Cavs were hitting everything from 3 and not missing.

[sanyo]

They were a different team in January though. They are better now compared to that team

Meh..besides Hill it was all the old guys doing the work anyways.

[Sonny]

In games like this and playoff games. You need your stars to play like stars. Raptors supporting cast was great tonight. DeRozan was invisible though. He was deferring to the other players and this guy did not play last night.

[MixxAOR]

I feel better knowing that Derozan and Lowry are not deflated and still got faith