Raptors get reality check vs. Cavaliers as playoff push continues

CLEVELAND – The Toronto Raptors' hopes of storming to the playoffs are great on paper, but the problem when you take it to the wood is that there are some pretty good teams out there. 

The Raptors are going to see plenty of them in the coming weeks. The Chicago Bulls are looking like a different team since the All-Star break – improbably the best defensive team in the league (small sample and all that) – and are all-in on making the play-in at least and visit Toronto Tuesday. The Raptors then have a pair of games in Washington against a similarly motivated Wizards team that is just behind them in the standings. Then it’s out west for the Denver Nuggets, and then both the Clippers and the Lakers. The vastly improved Oklahoma City Thunder are waiting for them when they get back and the the West-leading Nuggets again.

And as well as Toronto has played recently and as much encouragement the presence of Jakob Poeltl has provided, winning games against good teams hasn’t been a strong point this season. They were 14-24 against teams with .500 records or better heading into their Sunday night visit to Cleveland and they looked the part as the Cavaliers beat them in every quarter and for all four quarters in a 118-93 drubbing. 

The win improved Cleveland to 39-25 a kept them firmly in grasp of a home seed when the playoffs start while the Raptors fell to 30-32 as their season-best four-game winning streak was halted at four games. 

“We have been doing a much better job of everything defensively and we were just a step slow tonight on everything,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. “They got us back on our heels on everything: transition, guarding the ball screen and rolling [to the rim]. It was a a big difference I think just in energy and intensity.”

The Raptors were playing without second-leading scorer Fred VanVleet who missed his third straight game after the birth of his third child, and it showed.

 Sure the Raptors had their hand’s full defensively against Cleveland as Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland were able to get to pretty much where they wanted, with Mitchell unloading for 35 points and eight threes on 13-of-21 shooting and Garland finished with 18 points and 11 assists. Helped by Jarrett Allen’s 23 points on 10-of-13 shooting, Cleveland was shooting 53.8 per cent from the floor and 17-of-32 from three before garbage time kicked in with Cleveland leading by 30 midway through the fourth quarter. 

“They hit some really tough shots, and their both really quick guards that are able to get in the lane and can kick out and create shots, but they also create their own shots,” said Barnes, who spent a fair bit of time guarding Garland, but ended up doing too much chasing and not catching. “We messed up some coverages early and they made some open shots and that’s how they got going early.”

Before the game, Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff said the Raptors defensive physicality was a reason his club had lost three games this season to Toronto. That wasn’t a problem Sunday night. Mitchell seemed exceptionally comfortable, even with Raptors defensive ace Anunoby assigned to the task.

“He’s a great player, he’s very quick,” said Anunoby. “All you can do is keep trying to make it difficult for him.”

Turns out it wasn’t very difficult.

So Toronto’s defence was an issue. But the Raptors' struggles to score against the NBA’s third-ranked defence was a factor too. A day after Toronto couldn’t crack the century mark against the bottom-feeding Detroit Pistons, that the Raptors couldn’t keep pace with Cleveland offensively is worth noting. They were stuck on 85 points after 42 minutes when the coaches subbed out their respective starters. For the game Toronto shot just 30 per cent from the floor and made just nine threes.

Pascal Siakam led the Raptors with 25 points but needed 24 shots to do it even after going 4-of-7 from deep, but he had no help. Scottie Barnes stalled out at 12 points; Gary Trent Jr. was 2-of-13 and O.G. Anunoby took only seven shots in 34 minutes. Poeltl was fine, with 13 points, nine rebounds and three assists, but he wasn’t acquired to solve Toronto’s shaky half-court offense. 

Fixing that will likely determine the Raptors' fate as they try to pull themselves up from ninth place, an issue no different than before the trade deadline. 

“We’re going to need to probably score to get our defence set up,” said Nurse. “But there was just not enough offensive makes. We got it to the rim a bunch, we had some great looks at three, we just didn’t capitalize.”

The Raptors were running into Cleveland at a bad time. Beating a team four straight times is never easy in the first place, but especially since the Cavs were coming off a pair of disappointing losses coming out of the all-star break – a hard-fought one at home to Denver and then a blowout out on the second night of a back-to-back against Atlanta in the Hawks' first game after their head coach Nate McMillan got fired.

Cleveland had also lost against the Philadelphia 76ers before the break, so there have been some antsy moments with a three-game losing streak and two weeks between wins. The Cavaliers' late-season slide a year ago saw them fall back to the play-in tournament where they bowed out meekly, leaving a sour taste after what had been an otherwise encouraging season. 

But this skid was nothing to worry about according to Bickerstaff: “I trust these guys. I mean, I'm around them every single day. I know their makeup. I know their character.

"[...] these dudes have given me too many reasons to believe in them.”

They certainly looked the part against the Raptors in the first half as the fourth-seeded Cavs led 34-28 after the first quarter and 64-42 at half. The problem Toronto had was figuring out how to deal with the Cavaliers' superb backcourt combination of Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell. 

Toronto has been ninth in defensive rating since Jakob Poeltl joined them at the trade deadline, allowing 110.8 points per game compared to 17^th and 113.6 prior to his arrival. 

“He’s provided us some really great size against teams when we’ve needed it, in almost every game there’s been circumstances where we’ve needed him,” said Nurse of Poeltl, who came into the game averaging 14.4 points, 10 rebounds, 2.2 blocks and 1.6 steals while shooting 74.4 per cent from the floor in his five games with Toronto. Even though Toronto has had some success going with smaller lineups against the Cavs and their twin-tower combination of Even Mobley and Jarrett Allen, the addition of Poeltl meant he was likely to stay with a bigger lineup. “I guess I’m probably more interested in continuing to build what we’ve got, and that’s what we’ve got, so we need to see it go against every combination or situation we do get in.“

Well, Cleveland wasn’t paying any attention to that. Poeltl did have a couple of nice plays on Mitchell at the rim in the first quarter, but Mitchell was fine to step outside and knock down a pair of first-quarter threes or make some nifty drop passes to Jarrett Allen off his penetration.

Similarly, Garland started hot from deep, nailing three quick threes in the first quarter. Mitchell ended up with 22 points in the first half with five threes while Garland had 14 points and five assists. The beneficiary was Allen who had 17 first-half points on seven-of-eight shooting. It was the first time in a while that Toronto looked like they had more holes than they could fill defensively. 

Meanwhile, at the other end, the Cavs' size was a factor. Pascal Siakam found himself trying to figure out how to solve rangy Cleveland forward Evan Mobley. It was fine when Siakam’s jumper was falling – he was 2-of-5 from three in the first half --  but getting to the rim with the seven-foot Mobley’s spider arms waving around was a challenge, especially with the knowledge that Allen was lurking behind looking to help.

The Cavs looked like they might put a real hole in the game late in the second quarter as they were up by 14 after Mobley scored on a dunk set up by Mitchell and then drained a triple set up by Mitchell again, but Scottie Barnes finally engaged and scored eight points in a four-minute surge to close the half and keep Toronto in it. 

The Raptors continued their surge at the beginning of the third, with Siakam hitting his third triple of the game and then hitting Barnes for a lay-up after a steal by Poeltl on the next possession. Siakam’s fourth three of the game brought Toronto within four, but they had a hard time getting over the hump against a determined Cavaliers team and an especially locked-in Mitchell.

The Raptors briefly caught a break when a coach’s review of a Mitchell offensive foul requested by Bickerstaff was not only upheld but upgraded to a fragrant 1. Poeltl hit both of his free throws to cut the lead to nine, but then Mitchell went from hot to molten, scoring 10 points in the next two minutes, prompting a Raptors timeout with Cleveland’s lead extended to 20 on their way to a 92-76 lead to start the fourth quarter. 

The game wasn’t over then, but it ended up being just that. The Raptors' playoff push is just starting. It will be uphill.