BDL’s NBA 2015-16 Playoff Previews: Cavaliers vs. Raptors
How They Got Here
• Cleveland: By steamrolling the Detroit Pistons and Atlanta Hawks in a vulgar display of power that confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Cavs are the team to beat in the Eastern Conference and introduced the possibility they just might be able to trade haymakers with an eventual Western Conference champion after all.
Tyronn Lue’s team has played eight postseason games and won them all on the strength of the playoffs’ most monstrous offense. Cleveland has scored an average of 117 points per 100 possessions through two rounds, roasting both a Detroit squad that finished the regular season ranked 13th among 30 NBA teams in defensive efficiency and a lockdown Atlanta unit that had the league’s second-stingiest D.
Imposing shot-blockers, physical perimeter defenders, athletic switching groups, pressure-packing trapping lineups: the Cavaliers have cut them all to ribbons, with the penetrating and playmaking of LeBron James (23.5 points, 8.8 rebounds and 7.3 assists per game in the playoffs) and Kyrie Irving (24.4 points and 5.5 dimes a night) unleashing a bombs-away long-range shooting attack.
LeBron’s insistence that they’re not a 3-point shooting team aside, the Cavs ranked second in the NBA this season in 3-pointers made (10.7 per game) and third in 3-point attempts (29.6). They’ve opened the floodgates even further over the first two rounds, though, setting a new record for most 3-pointers in a single game in their annihilation of the Hawks, and generally taking (36.3) and making (16.8) triples at a rate (46.2 percent) that would leave Stephen Curry looking like Paul Allen.
The resurgence of Kevin Love has been a big part of that, as have sharpshooting outings from Irving, J.R. Smith and Channing Frye. The veteran Frye teamed with Love — a pairing that saw just 30 regular-season minutes after his trade-deadline acquisition — to unlock five-out, not-really-small-ball lineups that buried the Hawks beneath a barrage of long balls, serving notice that Lue might have some tactical tricks up his sleeve as the playoffs proceed.
Questions remain about how the Cavs’ defense will hold up against elite offenses, but the answer will only matter when somebody stops LeBron and company from surgically slicing their way to excellent looks possession after possession. The Raptors hope to succeed where Detroit and Atlanta couldn’t.
• Toronto: By haaaaaaaanging in there, kitty.
While the Cavaliers dispatched both the Pistons and Hawks as quickly as possible, the Raptors took the long road to the Eastern Conference finals, both overall — this is Toronto’s first trip to Round 3 in its 21 years as an NBA franchise — and in this particular iteration. The Raps needed the full seven games in the first two rounds to knock off both an Indiana Pacers squad that featured little beyond superstar Paul George and a Miami Heat team without All-Star Chris Bosh and, by series’ end, Hassan Whiteside.
After fighting all season to win a franchise-record 56 games and the East’s No. 2 seed, affording them home-court advantage against everybody but the Cavs, Toronto promptly lost Game 1 at home in both series before eventually outlasting the competition. It hasn’t been the prettiest path, but it’s the one that’s led the Raptors farther than they’ve ever been before. And while it’s one that cost them emerging star center Jonas Valanciunas — lost in Game 3 vs. Miami to a sprained right ankle, with no return date yet set — it’s also one that’s seen Toronto’s maligned All-Star backcourt resurrected at just the right time.
Both Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan had experienced crises in this postseason, but both came up huge late in the conference semis to vanquish the Heat, combining for 59, 59 and 63 points in Games 5 through 7 to carry Toronto past Miami. (That Game 7 output was their highest total in four years as a duo.) After early-postseason uncertainty, both Lowry’s confidence and DeRozan’s thumb seem healthy enough to get buckets with the best of them. That’s good. They’re going to need to. — Dan Devine
Head to Head: The Raptors won the season series, two games to one, with both wins coming in nip-and-tuck contests north of the border and the lone loss coming by 22 points at Quicken Loans Arena.
There are some contextual factors to keep in mind. The first Toronto win came with Valanciunas, Irving, Iman Shumpert, Matthew Dellavedova and then-starting center Timofey Mozgov all sidelined by injury. Cleveland’s lone win came with Toronto on the second night of a back-to-back on the road.
The first two games, including Cleveland’s win, came before the Cavaliers fired head coach David Blatt and elevated Lue to the head of the bench as interim head coach. The last two came with DeMarre Carroll — Toronto’s premier free-agent acquisition and, as he was last year for the Hawks, the expected first line of defense against James — shelved due to knee woes. In lieu of Carroll, the Raptors started both James Johnson and Luis Scola, who have combined to play 76 of Toronto’s 687 postseason minutes. So what we saw in November, January and February might not necessarily dictate very much of what we see now.
That said, two things from the regular-season series that seem particularly noteworthy moving forward:
• Lowry ate against the Cavs’ defense, from beyond the arc and especially in terms of generating chances on the interior:
Lowry capped the season series by scoring a career-high 43 points and delivering a game-winning step-back jumper over the outstretched arm of Dellavedova back in February.
• Even before their postseason mutation into a squad full of Stephs, the Cavs shot the lights out from long-range against the Raptors:
Toronto ranked 13th in the league in 3-point attempts allowed (23.3) and 16th in corner 3-point tries allowed (6.3) per game this season. They allowed only 18 corner attempts in three games against the Cavs, but Cleveland made 12 of them; the ratcheted-up Cavs offense just gashed Detroit (10.5 corner 3’s allowed per game, with Cleveland shooting 42.9 percent on them) and Atlanta (14.5 corner 3’s allowed per game, with Cleveland hitting an obscene 56.9 percent) in that same, very high-value area. — DD
Likely Starting Lineups: For the Cavs: LeBron, Love and Tristan Thompson up front, with Irving and designated rifleman Smith in the backcourt. It was one of the league’s most efficient big-minute lineups during the regular season, outscoring opponents by 12.4 points per 100 possessions. It’s been the most effective group to share the floor for at least 50 minutes in the postseason, outscoring the Pistons and Hawks by 18.2 points-per-100. In the two regular-season meetings with Toronto for which Irving was available, it was dominant, outscoring the Raptors by 23 points in 29 minutes of playing time.
It’s got two elite one-on-one creators (James and Irving); three plus long-distance shooters (Irving, Smith, Love); two glass-eating rebounders (Love and Thompson); a killer screen-setter and space-eating defender (Thompson); two unheralded individual defenders (Irving and Smith) with the athleticism and instincts to play up to challenges (just ask Jeff Teague and Kyle Korver); and James, the proverbial straw that stirs the drink. It’s a killer collection of talent that now has reps and rhythm under its belt. It is a serious, serious problem for the Raptors.
For the Raptors … well, it depends on health. Valanciunas was tenderizing fools through the first round and a half before his injury, but if he isn’t ready to go — and, from the sounds of things, he likely won’t be to start the series, at least — then we’re probably looking at Lowry and DeRozan in the backcourt alongside Carroll, Bismack Biyombo and Patrick Patterson, who started the last three games of the Pacers series and the final four games against Miami.
With Valanciunas entrenched at the five and Carroll missing three months after knee surgery, it wasn’t a lineup to which Raptors head coach Dwane Casey turned often during the regular season. That expected unit shared the floor for just 38 total minutes in 13 appearances, outscoring opponents by 12 points in that span. (For what it’s worth, 11 of those 38 minutes came against Cleveland; the Raptors were plus-6.)
Necessity’s the mother of invention, though, and it has led to Toronto deploying this unit for more than twice as many minutes in two postseason rounds as it did throughout an 82-game regular season … and to positive effect, outscoring Indiana and Miami by 27 points in 81 minutes of shared playoff floor time. (Put Valanciunas in for Biyombo, and that Lowry-DeRozan-Carroll-Patterson unit is … plus-27 in 85 minutes. Decent foursome, that.)
Biyombo was mostly tremendous against Miami, converting on his opportunities crashing to the basket in the pick-and-roll, freeing shooters and ball-handlers with stiff screens, deterring drivers with his presence in the paint and battling on the glass. Carroll has had to work his way back from knee surgery and, late in the Heat series, fight through a left wrist injury, but has produced timely buckets, made at least one 3-pointer in his last nine playoff games and continues to make life difficult on opposing perimeter scorers. Patterson offers a compelling collection of skills: 3-point shooting range (though he struggled mightily from distance against Miami), post-up prowess and the ability to pull down boards, switch frontcourt assignments and hold up sliding his feet with quicker wings outside. Lowry and DeRozan create, generating shot opportunities for themselves (especially DeRozan) and others (especially Lowry) to keep Toronto’s offense moving.
It isn’t always pretty or peppy — “shot clock down to” have to be the four most frequently spoken words on Raptors offensive possessions in the 2016 playoffs, especially in fourth quarters — but it’s effective. Or, at least, it can be … and given how dominant Cleveland’s offense has looked over the last month, it needs to be for Toronto to have a shot at pulling off the upset. — DD
Key Matchups
• LeBron James vs. everyone: We haven’t forgotton LeBron’s promise to the people of Cleveland, and we’re guessing he hasn’t, either. The 2015-16 NBA season has seemingly been a coronation of the Warriors on their quest for a second straight title, but LeBron’s Cavs pushed Golden State in last year’s finals further than anyone has managed to since Steph went supernova on the league. And that was without a healthy Love and Irving, who have helped him storm into this matchup with the Raptors.
Lineups featuring James this postseason are outscoring opponents by 16.3 points per 100 possessions — more than twice the rate the Heat did during his run to two straight titles in 2012 and 2013. LeBron is 31 years old, doing the same work he’s done in the playoffs since age 21, and you wonder how much longer he can sustain that level of greatness. The Cavs’ sweeping success to set up a conference finals matchup against a depleted Toronto team stretched to its limits through those same first two rounds will be as good a chance as any he’ll have of reaching an NBA Finals with as little strain on him as possible.
Now, only the defensive prowess of Carroll — who LeBron torched to the tune of 21 points, 8.5 assists and 8.3 rebounds in their 31.3 shared minutes per game during last year’s conference finals — stands in the way of his personal quest for a rematch with the Warriors and a shot to deliver Cleveland its first NBA title and vanquish the two-time reigning MVP in the process. That’s a scary thought for any opponent.
• The Raptors vs. overexertion: Did we mention the Raptors have played six more games — and a total of 303 more minutes when you add the three overtime periods they needed against Miami — of hard-fought playoff basketball than the Cavaliers over the past 31 days? Forced to rely heavily on Biyombo sans Valanciunas and with their three most important starters — Lowry, DeRozan and Carroll — all battling various injury concerns, Toronto couldn’t have been pushed to the limit any further entering Game 1.
Meanwhile, the Cavs haven’t played since May 8 and have had a total of 25 rest days since the regular season ended. In fact, they’ve had so much free time they held an “Adult Dance Party” at Love’s house.
Any nagging injuries that may have been bothering the Cavs have had ample time to heal. Of course, they might also enter Tuesday’s Game 1 with a little rust, offering the Raptors a fighting chance to steal Game 1 in Cleveland and make this a longer series than expected. Outside of that, though, a Toronto team that’s maximized every minute from a depleted roster will be fighting exhaustion on top of everything else.
• Kyle Lowry vs. Kyrie Irving: Any time you have arguably the East’s two best point guards playing opposite each other in a conference finals, it’s worth mentioning. As mentioned earlier, Lowry may have torched the Cavs in their three regular-season meetings — averaging 31 points and 8.3 assists — but those numbers dipped to 16 and 6.5 in the 28 minutes per game he averaged in two meetings opposite Irving, who largely canceled out those numbers when they shared the court. In reality, when the two All-Star point guards shared the court this season, the Cavs outscored the Raps by 20.3 points per 100 possessions. Lowry’s struggles this postseason aren’t instilling any less confidence in Irving, so the Toronto playmaker will have several riddles to solve in order to make this series more interesting.
• Bismack Biyombo vs. the glass: Nobody who’s averaged double-digit minutes in these playoffs has grabbed a greater percentage of available offensive rebounds than Thompson, whose 18.9 offensive rebouning percentage would have led the league during the regular season. And that doesn’t even account for Love and James, who are loads on the glass themselves. With Toronto forced to play smaller lineups sans Valanciunas, the bulk of the responsiblity of keeping Cleveland off the boards will fall on Biymobo, who’s proven equal to the task. The only regular left in these playoffs to grab a greater percentage of defensive boards than Biymobo (33.2 percent) is Valanciunas (33.9 percent).
How the Cavaliers Could Win: They do as they’ve done through two rounds — break down the opposition off the dribble and from the post, kick out and swing the ball to open shooters, knock down shots, control the glass, take care of the ball, and hustle back in transition. Shut off the Raptors’ paths to easy points, trust their process for generating dynamite looks, avoid an early slip-up that could cost them home-court advantage, and let their superior talent take over. — DD
How the Raptors Could Win: Lowry absolutely incinerates Irving, Dellavedova, Shumpert, Mo Williams, Mark Price, Terrell Brandon and any other point-guard defenders Cleveland can muster, keeps out of foul trouble and stays on the court for 40-plus minutes a night. DeRozan continues to make the tough shots he generates at opportune moments. Carroll, Lowry, Patterson, Cory Joseph, Norman Powell and whichever other defenders see time on James and Irving can limit one-on-one blow-bys that will collapse Toronto’s defense and force rotations that create open 3s. Multiple Cavs — pick two or three of J.R., Love, Frye and Richard Jefferson — finally cool off from deep.
Valanciunas comes back sooner rather than later, and looks as good on both ends as he did before he left. If he can’t, Biyombo proves equal to the Herculean task of defending reams of pick-and-rolls in space, keeping Thompson off the boards, handling Love on the block, protecting the rim and punishing Cleveland as both a screener and a dive man. Joseph and Terrence Ross play like the best versions of themselves more often than not, and more often than they did against Miami.
This is a long list. — DD
Totally Subjective Entertainment Value Ranking: 5 out of 10. For a series that featured three OT games and went the distance, Toronto-Miami was awfully ugly, with at least one team scoring in the low 90’s in the final six games. The Raptors have shot 41.3 percent overall and 30.3 percent from 3 in the playoffs, which are the worst clips among teams that reached the second round. If coupled with Cleveland’s hot shooting against the Hawks, this entertainment value could sink even lower than a middling number.
At the same time, the series marks the Raptors’ first ever trip to a conference finals, offering more casual NBA fans a chance to see the team’s rabid base at work. Trips into Toronto won’t be easy for Cleveland, but they should be fun for viewers. And this matchup also includes James, one of the game’s all-time greats, on a mission, still at the height of his powers, and that alone is enough for anyone to watch. — BR
Prediction: Cavs in 5.
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