Winners and Losers: Cavs vs Raptors Game 3 – Raps control the paint

The Cleveland Cavaliers suffered a tough blow in their first game on the road against the Toronto Raptors.

Let’s examine today’s losers, because there are no winners. Except the Tyson family, who deserve honorary recognition.

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LOSER – Turnovers

Let’s start by setting the table. Or, like the Cavs, spreading things everywhere and creating havoc.

Cleveland opened the game with nine first quarter turnover. It’s enough to break your back in the NBA playoffs. The Cavs somehow managed to weather the storm and stay within two possessions at the end of the quarter, but it set the stage for how bad things would get.

Every potential Cavaliers run was satisfied by these self-inflicted errors. That’s not to take anything away from the Raptors, whose length and athleticism directly contributed to those turnovers, but throwing the ball to the third row (as James Harden did in the second half) is something most NBA players can avoid.

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“I didn’t think our spacing was great,” Kenny Atkinson said after the game. “Crowding the paint on our driveways… they decided they really wanted to pack it in, and I felt like we were trying to thread the needle too much in trying to get it through there.”

Dennis Schroder played five minutes in the first half. He turned it over three times in that period and didn’t play the rest of the game.

Harden finished with 8 turnovers. That was his first playoff game with that many turnovers since 2019, when he was with the Houston Rockets. Some of his more careless homages were difficult to watch. Although, once again, Toronto deserves credit for invading him and making life hell.

The Raptors forced Cleveland into 20 turnovers overall. Those for 23 points took them away from turnovers. This was more than enough to erase any marginal advantage the Cavs had gained on the offensive glass (16-11). The truth is, if you give up that many possessions, in most cases you lose the game.

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LOSER – The paint

In this game, a lot of importance will be placed on the Cavaliers’ three-point defense. Believe me, anyone who has read FTS this season has heard many complaints about how this team defended the perimeter.

But while Toronto shot 14-23 (60%) from downtown in Game 3, the Cavs matched them in a row with 14 makes. What really buried the Cavs was Toronto’s dominance in the restricted area, outscoring Cleveland 60-40 in the restricted area.

Scottie Barnes paced them for 33 points on 8-12 two-point shooting. RJ Barrett and Collin Murray Boyles joined in on the fun, combining for 55 points while shooting 17-26 inside the arc.

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Meanwhile, the Cavs rely almost entirely on outside shooting. Cleveland made 45 three-point attempts and only 36 shots inside the arc. Harden, Mitchell and Mobley made a combined 42 shot attempts, half of which came from the three-point line, where they shot 4-21.

This is the difference.

“Him [Boyles] he’s a warrior, to be honest,” Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic said after the game. “I thought he had a high-level performance tonight and that contributes to the strength of his will.”

Toronto’s hot shooting obviously paved the way for them to dominate the court. Cleveland’s bigs, in particular, have started to move further away from the three-point line, at the cost of giving the Raptors easier drives to the basket. I’d say they should have stuck to the game plan and walled off the interior, but the Raptors simply couldn’t miss, so I can’t completely blame the Cavs for overreacting and trying to stay in range of three-point shooters.

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However, Cleveland Should win the paint battle. You can’t always control whether your opponent will catch fire from the center. But you Candies check the paint. Mobley and Allen weren’t impactful enough tonight, even with their four blocks. Harden and Mitchell were also tested, regularly getting involved in Toronto’s plays and failing to deal with the moment.

The Raptors will no longer replicate their 60% three-point shooting. At least, I wouldn’t expect them to. But I have no reason to believe they can’t replicate what they did with paint.

The Cavs must work harder in this regard or they risk returning home with a draw.

LOSER – Battle of the 4th quarter

After (somehow) keeping the game close for 40 minutes, everything I mentioned finally came back to bite the Cavs in the fourth quarter.

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Jamison Battle came off the bench and hit four of four three-point attempts. Barrett poured more fuel on the fire as Barnes and CMB repeatedly forced the Cavaliers to launch their own three-pointers to no avail. Controlling the paint, scoring three points and forcing turnovers was the path to victory for Toronto.

What followed was a 43-23 fourth quarter loss.

I think it’s worth reiterating that the Cavs had this game in hand before the final blow. It was a two-point game going into the final frame, and truthfully, nothing about the style of the previous 36 minutes was dramatically different from the final 12.

In other words, you could look at this game from two different perspectives. Glass half full? The Cavs played poorly, Toronto was red-hot, yet the game was still within reach for much of the night.

Half empty? The Raptors showed they could dictate the terms of the engagement for 48 minutes and had a spark in Game 4.