The Cleveland Cavaliers have once again gone up to Toronto and beat the Raptors.
Now the Cleveland Cavaliers have a comfortable 2-0 lead and are coming home for Game 3 on Saturday. They have now beaten the Raptors in eight straight playoff games., including five straight in Toronto.
LeBron was unbelievable once again. He shot 19-28 and scored 43 points and dished out 14 assists.
Kevin Love really came alive during Game 2.
The All-Star scored 31 points on 11-21 shooting including 7-7 from the free throw line and pulled down 11 rebounds. The best game by far for Love during these playoffs. Love is clearly the second-best player on this Cavaliers team, and they need this Kevin Love to stay. Him playing this well incrementally opens up the offense so much for the Cavaliers, and it takes pressure off LeBron.
When the two stars have shared the floor in this series they have played extremely well. In 62 minutes on the floor they have a net rating of 14.6. Which is what we’ve grown to suspect from these two stars.
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On the other side of this when Lowry and DeRozan share the floor in this series the team has a net rating of negative 13.6 over 68 minutes.
As for Thompson, he went out late in the second quarter after getting hit above his eye and it began bleeding. So, the trio of James, Love and Thompson only played four minutes together but in the series, they have played 16 minutes.
They have been effective on the floor outscoring the Raptors by 48.8 points per 100 possessions. As a whole, they’ve have been good with Love at center and have been good with Love at power forward.
The Cavaliers are now getting more consistent contributions from their role players. Especially from Jeff Green and JR Smith. The two have combined to average 32.5 points per game and 64.5 percent from the field and 75 percent from the outside in the two games.
Jeff Green has shot 29.2 percent from three over the past two seasons, which obviously isn’t very good, but if he can be an average three-point shooter during this year’s playoffs then he is very valuable. He is a 6-foot-9 forward who can switch onto bigger and smaller players giving the Cavaliers a valuable asset.
Now, Game 3 is upon us and the Cavaliers are now home against the Raptors. The Cavaliers have to go back to getting Kevin Love involved early and often like in Game 2. Love took nine shots in the first quarter and scored 10 points for the Cavaliers. He ended the half with 18 points on 7-14 shooting. They will need that same aggressiveness in Game 3 that he displayed in Game 2.
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If they play with aggression in Game 3, this series is over. Game 3 and Game 4 are the Cavs opportunities to play aggressive and rest after.