Game #77: Toronto Raptors 106 - Cleveland Cavaliers 112

[Sonny]

Kyle Lowry has a message for @NovaMBBhttps://t.co/mWshZBpYbX#FinalFour pic.twitter.com/5d4U2GbJxF

— The Players' Tribune (@PlayersTribune) April 1, 2018

[planetmars]

So that sucked. Crappy effort from Kyle which really sucked. Jose burnt him so many times it wasn't even funny. Lowry just had nothing in his shot either.

Not much positive out of this one except for that last minute of the game where we turned it from a blow out to just an average loss. Moral victory?

[The Great One]

Casey? Oh, this was on Lowry. Should have stayed and celebrated with his other team. I don't care where he goes on off days but if he's flying all over the country he better be ready to play. He clearly was tired out there. That looks really bad given the context of this game.

^This

[NoPropsneeded]

Kyle Lowry has a message for @NovaMBBhttps://t.co/mWshZBpYbX#FinalFour pic.twitter.com/5d4U2GbJxF

— The Players' Tribune (@PlayersTribune) April 1, 2018

So much passion for his college team, but when it comes to us he could give a rats ass if we get bounced in the first round. Why not go back and play college ball if you love them so much? Trade this clown, Vanvleet has more pride in his left nut than this dude does in his whole body. Kyle Lowry just cares about being paid, DeRozan is the only one out of the two who actually loves the city and wants to bring us a chip.

[Shaolin Fantastic]

Luckily for us, Boston lost. So it was actually a good thing we lost this game.

[Rudy Bargnani]

Lowry, asked if last night's trip had an impact on tonight's game: "I'm still a professional. I'm still coming out here to do my job. I just missed shots. Thats it. What I did last night was support my team, I got back here on time, I ain't miss nothing. I just missed some shots"

— Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) April 4, 2018

Missed some shots and totally forgot how to play defense

[golden]

Casey? Oh, this was on Lowry. Should have stayed and celebrated with his other team. I don't care where he goes on off days but if he's flying all over the country he better be ready to play. He clearly was tired out there. That looks really bad given the context of this game.

Yep. This game was 100% on Lowry. He scores his regular 16ppg and holds Jose to his regular 5ppg and this one is a blowout for the Raps. Hopefully this incident doesn't create any bad vibes within the team.

We're not paying him $30M/yr to fill up his bucket list.

[S.R.]

Luckily for us, Boston lost. So it was actually a good thing we lost this game.

This right here. Ideal outcome at the top of the conference is actually going to be to hold the current positioning.

[The Great One]

So the Raps defence is ranked 24th since the Rockets game.

[Shaolin Fantastic]

So the Raps defence is ranked 24th since the Rockets game.

2014-15 redux? We'll be playing Washington too it looks like.

[DanH]

Casey? Oh, this was on Lowry. Should have stayed and celebrated with his other team. I don't care where he goes on off days but if he's flying all over the country he better be ready to play. He clearly was tired out there. That looks really bad given the context of this game.

What was the context of the game again? It's just one more win or loss. You think after one or two rounds of quality playoff basketball anyone is thinking about this game?

I don't like that Lowry took that trip, but there's also no real evidence it caused his bad game. He had a similarly bad game against Boston and there were no such conditions. He was mostly playing dumb - probably pressing to try to dispel the stupid narrative he brought on himself, but here we are.

And yeah, Casey. He made some really, REALLY dumb moves that cost us a real shot at this game. Lowry was also trash, as I mentioned, but there's plenty of room for both of them to be garbage in the same game, and they proved that.

[Nilanka]

Cavs have such a MASSIVE psychological advantage over us, I'm not sure any strategic/scheming/lineup tweaks will make a difference in a 7 game series.

Ignorning the cliche lip service in post-game sound bites, I don't believe for a second that anyone on the Raptors squad actually believes they can knock off LeBron. That's the difference between the Raps and Celtcs.

[JimiCliff]

Looking at this game and the last one against the Cavs, there's a trend emerging in the +/-. Our strongest players have been OG (+3 last night, -5 the game before), Siakam (-3, +0) and Delon (+4, and a (by far) team high +12).

These are the guys we need playing a lot against Lebron. They're the only ones who have any chance of slowing him down.

And FVV cannot be on the floor with Lowry. That lineup is just too damn small. It's getting torched, and Cleveland hasn't even started hunting mismatches yet.

Of course, we all know, no significant adjustments are going to be made until we've lost the first two games at home in a series.

[DanH]

Looking at this game and the last one against the Cavs, there's a trend emerging in the +/-. Our strongest players have been OG (+3 last night, -5 the game before), Siakam (-3, +0) and Delon (+4, and a (by far) team high +12).

These are the guys we need playing a lot against Lebron. They're the only ones who have any chance of slowing him down.

And FVV cannot be on the floor with Lowry. That lineup is just too damn small. It's getting torched, and Cleveland hasn't even started hunting mismatches yet.

Of course, we all know, no significant adjustments are going to be made until we've lost the first two games at home in a series.

Delon's and Siakam's numbers are a little skewed by playing non-LeBron minutes, but the point mostly stands.

In minutes against LeBron, last night Delon was a -2 in 4 minutes, OG was a +3 in 21 minutes, and Siakam was a -6 in 12 minutes.

The real lesson to be learned here (and I honestly can't fathom how Casey wouldn't know this already) is that Miles can't play as the primary LeBron defender, which he did for a few minutes with the starters when the Cavs blew the game open. When Miles was on the court against LeBron, it broke down into three data sets - when Siakam was the LBJ defender, when OG was the LBJ defender, and when Miles was the LBJ defender. With Siakam, they were -1 in 7 minutes, with OG, +4 in 2 minutes, and with Miles, -9 in 3 minutes. MINUS NINE. THREE MINUTES.

[KeonClark]

Lowry, asked if last night's trip had an impact on tonight's game: "I'm still a professional. I'm still coming out here to do my job. I just missed shots. Thats it. What I did last night was support my team, I got back here on time, I ain't miss nothing. I just missed some shots"

— Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) April 4, 2018

I hate how he always gets so defensive. Same as last year with the whole injured arm in the 3 point competition and the all star. Just gets more defiant.

Also took me reading this quote twice to realize "what I did last night was support my team" meant Villanova Wildcats, not Toronto Raptors...you wouldn't have been able to give Villanova 1 million dollars this year if Toronto hadn't already given you 150.

I bought his jersey a couple years ago and proudly called him the Bay Street Bulldog. Not to get overly dramatic but its been continued hits to his reputation for me since