Written by Jeff Zillgitt at USAToday.com
The Toronto Raptors are in trouble.
Deep trouble.
Perhaps that was the case before Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals between the Raptors and Cleveland Cavaliers.
Cleveland’s dominating 115-84 victory over the Raptors in the series-opener on Tuesday reinforced the point.
“It’s one game,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “The series is not over by any means.”
He’s right, and he also added: “They’re a problem.”
A problem for Detroit, then Atlanta and now Toronto.
The Cavaliers are 9-0 in the playoffs, steamrolling opponents with a punishing offense and winning games by an average margin of 12.8 points, best in the league.
None of this is a knock on the Raptors. This is more about what Cleveland is doing, especially on offense, and Tuesday’s victory was destruction of another kind.
In Cleveland’s first two series against Detroit and Atlanta, it won with a barrage of three-pointers, including an NBA-record 25 threes against the Hawks in Game 2.
Toronto made a decision in Game 1 to try and prevent the Cavs from knocking down three after three after three.
So Cleveland, which made just seven threes in Game 1, just went inside and did its damage at the rim, outscoring Toronto 56-36 on points in the paint. The Cavs made 28-of-38 (73.1%) shots in the paint, which is 17.2 percentage points better than the league average, according to stats.nba.com.
“You take away the three, but if you’re not careful, you’re giving up layups, and that’s where we got to get that balance, and I think that’s the key for this whole series,” Casey said.
LeBron James scored 24 points – 22 of them on shots inside the restricted – and he made 11-of-13 shots. Irving made 11-of-17 shots, including 6-of-8 inside the paint. They were 22-of-30 from the field.
James is the steam locomotive barreling down the track. Irving is the high-speed train. James uses his strength and size to finish. Irving uses creative angles, spin on the ball and has a shot-makers touch at the rim.
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