The Cleveland Cavaliers and the Toronto Raptors will trade the southern banks of Lake Erie for the northern banks of Lake Ontario, they’ll change cities, even countries. It still might not be enough of a change for the Toronto team who are not only down 0-2, but clearly below their opponent’s level. They hope to replicate last season when they’ve been in the same situation but somehow managed to pull the series even, but the Cavaliers are also aware off it and will look to take at least one away game and close another series as quickly as possible. Game 3 is on Friday evening in the Air Canada Center, so take a look on what you might expect from it.
Cleveland Cavaliers at Toronto Raptors Game 3
LINE: Cleveland -7.5 (-105); moneyline -345
Total: 213.5 (-106o, -106u)
The Cavaliers hot shooting continues in another blowout win
The team that that was largely expected to be able to flip a switch in the post-season and start playing like the team that won the title last year has gone ahead and flipped the switch. The Cleveland Cavaliers were unfazed by the lineup change that Toronto threw at them, blowing the Raptors away with super efficient offensive execution to take the 2-0 lead in the series. The Cavs set a franchise record for point in a game in 125-103 victory, ignoring Raptors’ vows to contest more shots.
LeBron James didn’t score in the first 8 minutes of the game and sat out the last quarter as the game was already decided, but still managed to score 39 points, on just 14 shots, no less. James tweaked his left ankle early in the second quarter, but it didn’t bother him. Outside the best player on the planet, the Cleveland Cavaliers repeated the three point barrage from the previous game. They rattled off eight straight three-pointers to start the game and finish the game with 18-of-33 3-pointers despite being more challenged by the Raptors defense. Irving and Love have had games below their potential, as the Cavs point guard went 6-of-19 and Love had just 9 points, but it didn’t matter as they got good contributions from their bench players, boosted by the extended fourth quarter time.
The Cleveland Cavaliers ended up shooting 54.7 percent on both 2-pt and 3-pt tries and scored more free throws than the Raptors attempted. While what they did offensively was great, they also managed to execute their defensive plan to the same kind of perfection. J.R. Smith, helped by James and others, limited Toronto’s All-Star shooting guard DeRozan to just 5 points, keeping him off the line and off his sweet spots for the second game in a row. This is what truly opened up the game for the Cavs and is something they can count on if the shots stop falling in Toronto like the last year. The Cleveland Cavaliers were 52 per cent on wide-open threes on their home court in last year’s series, and just 36 per cent on such shots at the Air Canada Centre.
Place: Air Canada Center, Toronto, Ontario
Date/Time: Friday May 5th, 2017. 7:00 PM ET
TV Coverage: ESPN
Change of strategy does not do much for the Raptors in game 2
The Toronto Raptors are trying to change on the fly, out of necessity, and it hasn’t worked for them yet. They altered themselves in Game 2, changed the starting lineup and the strategy, looking to outscore the hot shooting Cavs. While the move certainly helped Valanciunas and the second unit, the tactics predictably failed. Neither Powell not Patterson could compete at the required level, and with DeRozan taken out of the game by focused Cleveland Cavaliers defense, the Raptors mustered only 103 points, trailing by more than 20 points for the most of the second half. To add to the misery, Kyle Lowry injured his ankle after being stepped on by Powell as the third quarter started and it may not be a minor thing. This game was a blowout, so Lowry might not have even played in the fourth quarter if he were fully healthy and has promised to play in the next game, but he’s already banged up with the back and wrist issues, so another one is not going to help his team’s cause.
Speaking of helping his team, DeRozan really needs to step up, somehow. He’s not an elite scorer with obvious deficiencies in shot selection and range, but for the Raptors to have any chance of winning at least one game in this series, he needs to play better. He was held without a field goal for more than three quarters and finished Game 2 with 5 points on a 2-of-11 shooting. Each time DeRozan was held to single digits in the playoffs, his team lost. He wasted terrific games by Valanciunas and Joseph off the bench, while Lowry and Ibaka were solid. Valanciunas, replaced by Patterson in the starting lineup, was happy to see more balls going his was and led the team in scoring with his 23 points on 10-of-13 shooting. Joseph also got hot off the bench with 22 points, team leading six rebounds and two 3-pointers on 9-of-14 shooting in 25 minutes, although he was helped by garbage time and Lowry’s injury. While the change helped Valanciunas, Carroll’s offensive demise continues. He was 0-of-6 and failed to score. P.J. Tucker, another player who the Raptors need on the court for his defense, was 0-of-3 with another potato in the scoring column.
No player or coach will publicly admit that a series is over before it’s actually over, and the Raptors can hold hope that the hot shooting of the Cavs regresses to the mean in the following games, but they have to do their part. Toronto’s starting lineup is a guess once again, with Lowry’s ankle issues and Patterson’s ineffectiveness, so Casey may make more moves to already discombobulated rotation. These desperation moves sometimes work, but fall into obscurity if they don’t. Either way, the Raptors season is on line in this game, so they’ll give everything they have not to fall into the dreaded 0-3 deficit.
Cleveland Cavaliers at Toronto Raptors Game 3 Trends & Prediction
Despite being just 40-45-3 against the spread overall, the Cavs have now covered in four straight and are suddenly drawing high attention of the punter, big and small. Another high scoring game and another overs brought their season score to 52-35-1 against the over/under, so that’s where the money’s hiding on their games. Change of venue means that they’ll need to do much better than their season record of 19-24 ATS on the road, but it doesn’t hurt the over statistics. The Cavs are 25-18 on games played outside Cleveland.
Toronto fell to 48-41-1 ATS record overall, but these numbers don’t mean much against the Cavaliers. They are just 22-21-1 when playing on at home and they lose straight up on their home court in every series, so it’s not like they have a stronghold there. On the total points market, the Raptors are 48-42 against the over/under overall and most of the plus points come in Canada, where they managed to top the projected line on 64 percent of the games.
The Cavs are undoubtedly a dominant team in this matchup, and while we saw things turn from game to game and especially with the change of the scenery, this doesn’t look as it’s going to be a series like that. The books have failed to recognize the vast difference between two rivals from the first game and are struggling to catch up. The market may not used the gifts in the first to meetings, but have surely jumped on the small jolly from the start in the Game 3, increasing the spread to 3.5-points. This should bounce back as Lowry’s status is confirmed, so don’t worry if you missed to take the Cavs early on, there’s still chance for you to do it. It’s tight, and the numbers don’t align well to support the eye-test, but as long as you can have the Cavaliers at -3 -105, take them, it’s good enough of a value in this scenario to cash in. The total points were not adjusted after the second game massive jump, but it still doesn’t give us enough of a value to go with it. My projected line is 215, not good enough for the over bet. Hopefully, one under will force books to lower it so we could hunt it in the Game 4.
My Pick: Cleveland -3 (-105)
Total: Pass
