Cavs defensive issues amplified in Game 4 loss

The Cleveland Cavaliers suffered a 105-99 defeat to the Toronto Raptors in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals, and with the series now tied 2-2, the Cavs defensive issues are becoming amplified.

In the Cavaliers first two sweeps of the Detroit Pistons and Atlanta Hawks, a middling defense was being overshadowed by some history-making offense. In the Pistons series, the Cavs had a defensive rating of 107.4, and in the next round against the Hawks, that number was 105.9, both way too high for a championship-level team.

As aforementioned though, when Cleveland were breaking three-point records and scoring the ball at a breakneck pace, no one focused on the defensive shortcomings. They didn’t need to, as the Cavs were steamrolling the opposition, and seemed poised to make another NBA Finals appearance.

Now, though, after a travesty in Toronto, there are major questions surrounding whether or not the finals will be coming to the Quicken Loans Arena again, and those questions begin on the defensive end of the floor.

In Game 4 of the conference finals, the Raptors established themselves early by getting anything and everything they wanted on the offensive end. Lay-ups, dunks, free lanes to the basket and open jump shots were the order of the day for the Raptors and the Cavs had no panacea.

On the game, Toronto scored 105 points, which isn’t a massive number. However, the Raptors shot 53.8 percent from the field, which is a representation of how easily the Cavs were allowing their opposition to score.

“Obviously nothing,” Channing Frye said, when asked what was happening defensively in Game 4, via Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal. “They shot 54%. We’ve got to look at film & do better. That’s some bullshit.”

Cleveland’s defensive rating on the night was 121.6, a ridiculously high number. In the conference finals, the Cavs defensive rating has been 103.9, a number that is skewed from the two blowout wins in the first couple of games, in which the offense was once again, on fire.

You can get away with mediocre defensive efforts when you are scoring at an unbelievable pace. However, on the road, when the shots aren’t falling, you need a strong defensive foundation to fall back on and carry you.

Cleveland doesn’t have this. When they’re struggling to hit shots, like they were in the first half of both Games 3 and 4, the defense follows suit and can’t do, well, anything.

“Just get back to our principles,” Tristan Thompson said, when asked what the Cavs need to do to play better defense, via cavs.com. “We definitely made a couple of mistakes and we are kind of improvising. We just got to stick to what T Lue [coach Tyronn Lue] has drilled into us from day one, stick to it, and play at a high level and don’t make things up.”

Just a couple of mistakes? The Cavaliers have a whole lot more than just a couple of issues to clean up defensively.

In the first half of Game 4, where the Cavs fall behind by as much as 18 points, Toronto shot 55.6 percent from the field. The path to the basket parted, as Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan and even Corey Joseph, got to the rim with no resistance.

Lowry scored 20 points to half time, going 8-of-11 from the field. This included hitting 4-of-6 shots from behind the three-point line, as the Cavaliers defenders were scrambling, trying to keep up with the Raptors, which left numerous Toronto players open on the perimeter.

It was the second consecutive game in which Cleveland started slow defensively. In Game 3, the Raptors scored 60 first half points, shooting a hair under 49 percent from the field, so it is clearly an area that needs attention.

In the playoffs, you can’t keep giving teams double-digit head starts. The Cavs have done this twice in Games 3 and 4, and despite rallying late in both games, the advantage Toronto already had was too much for the Cavaliers to overcome.

“They hit us first to start the game, and we had trouble taking the challenge (defensively) 1-on-1,” Lue said, via Terry Pluto of The Plain Dealer.

After keeping the Raptors All-Star duo of Lowry and DeRozan in check during the earlier games of the series, the Cavs lost sight of them in Game 4.

Lowry, after his blistering first half, finished the night with 35 points on 14-of-20 shooting, while DeRozan put up 32 points, going 14-of-23 from the floor. The combined 67 points was the most the two has ever paired up for, and majority of the buckets came easily.

Lowry went 4-of-7 from beyond the arc, as open looks were there for him all night long. On the game, Toronto went just 7-of-22 from three-point land, a number that would have been higher if they connected on some more open looks.

The Cavaliers can live with Lowry firing away from downtown though. It is the lesser of two evils, as he is such a bullish player driving to the basket. Thus, Cleveland’s plan coming into the series was to contain both Lowry and DeRozan on dribble drives and shots at the basket. This plan exploded in Game 4.

The Raptors scored 48 points off drives in Game 4, a number that is worrisome enough for the Cavs. However, when you see that Lowry and DeRozan combined to score 36 of those drive points, it should send the alarm bells ringing to the highest tune in the Cavaliers minds. Toronto scored 17 of their final 22 points off drives, as they finished the game on an 11-3 run.

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“You tip your hat to DeMar and Kyle,” LeBron James said, via James Herbert of CBS Sports. “They did a great job. They’re All-Stars for a reason. That’s why they’re here today. They’ve carried this team all season.”

While that is true, the Cavaliers need to do a much better job at making things tougher for the duo in Game 5 and beyond.

A key component to finishing a defensive possession is grabbing the rebound, and the Cavs struggled with this in Game 4. While Cleveland won the rebounding battle 38-35, they failed to secure the most important ones.

With 1:36 remaining and the Cavs down 101-99, they forced DeRozan into a tough 16-foot baseline jumper. It was one of the few good defensive possessions for Cleveland but the good work was undone when Patrick Patterson grabbed the offensive rebound, leading to a DeRozan lay-in, putting the Raptors up 103-99.

After Biyombo blocked a J.R. Smith three-point shot on the next play, Lowry failed to convert but once again, the Cavs couldn’t finish the play. Biyombo secured the offensive rebound, leading to a Raptors timeout and eventually a Lowry lay-up with 22 seconds remaining. 105-99 Raptors, ballgame.

Going back home for Game 5, the Cavaliers will feel confident and maybe they should. After all, they have been unbeatable at home throughout the playoffs.

If they don’t clean up the pressing defensive issues at hand though, they will feel like they’re still playing north of the border.