The Cleveland Cavaliers had won ten straight games before Game 3 on Saturday night and it looked like their series against the Toronto Raptors was going to be a yawner. However, the Raptors showed they still had some life in them with a 15-point win. Most analysts still don’t give the Raptors much of a chance, but if they can pull out a win in Game 4, people will start taking them seriously.
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SERIES RECAP
Cleveland dominated Toronto from start to finish in the first two games of the series, but Game 3 was all Toronto and Bismack Biyombo. Biyombo hadn’t tallied more than five rebounds in the first two games of the series after dominating the glass against the Miami Heat in the conference semifinals, but was enormous in Game 3 with a team record 26 rebounds.
Biyombo is the team’s best rebounder with Jonas Valanciunas out and needs to keep carrying the load for Toronto to win.
KEY MATCHUP
A big part of why Cleveland lost Game 3 so handily was that Toronto was able to flip the script when it came to the rebounding battle. Biyombo had a monster game and the Raptors ended up outrebounding the Cavaliers by 14 boards. In particular, Kevin Love had a poor time getting rebounds, coming down with just four boards in the game, just as many as Kyrie Irving.
The bigger concern for the Cavaliers heading into Game 4 is the status of Kyrie Irving. Irving left Game 3 in the fourth quarter after a rough night shooting from the floor and nothing definitive is known about whether or not he will be healthy or not. Following the Cavaliers struggles without Irving in the playoffs last year, losing him for any time would seriously be detrimental to Cleveland’s chances of being able to finally hoist a title.
KEY STATS & TRENDS
LeBron James has been phenomenal these playoffs and he was one of just two Cavaliers to have a good performance Saturday night. Cleveland shot just 35 percent from the floor in Game 3, but James went 9-17 from the field and was the only Cavaliers starter to hit better than 50 percent of his shots. If Irving is significantly hurt, the onus will once again be fully on him to get the Cavaliers to the NBA Finals.
J.R. Smith hadn’t been shooting much while the Cavaliers were rolling, but with Kevin Love and Irving both struggling, he took matters into his own hands and was the only other Cavalier other than LeBron to have a good shooting performance. Fifteen of Smith’s 16 shots were three-point attempts and he ended up hitting six of those on the night.
Smith is a streaky shooter, but when he’s rolling the Cavaliers are usually in good hands.
Aside from Biyombo, Toronto also got big games from both of its guards. Kyle Lowry had struggled for most of the postseason, but finally showed up in a big game, hitting over 50 percent from the floor and going 4-8 from behind the arc. That’s the type of performance Toronto needs from him in order to knock Cleveland off.
DeMar DeRozan led all scorers with 32 and he continues to take more shots than anyone else in the series. He has been the toughest player for Cleveland to guard and also contributed in other ways in Game 3. It’s not often DeRozan does much other than shoot, but he led the team in assists on Saturday and if can add that element to his game for a bit it makes him all the more dangerous.
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