It is a whole lot more fun, not to mention a whole lot more successful, to be the punisher than be the punished in an NBA playoff game, the Cavaliers are learning in their quarterfinal series with the Raptors.<\/p>\n
The Cavaliers won both games in Cleveland to take a 2-0 lead into Toronto for Game 3 at 8 p.m. April 23 at Scotiabank Arena. Cleveland is the only team in the Eastern Conference with a 2-0 first-round lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure last year we had the physical kind of resilience,\u201d Coach Kenny Atkinson said April 20 in his postgame news conference after the Cavs beat the Raptors, 115-105. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re physically more capable this year. They tried to wear us down tonight, and we didn\u2019t. I felt at times last year in the playoffs we were not up to the task physically.<\/p>\n
\u201cSam (Merrill) is a part of that. It\u2019s hard to bully him and push him around. He\u2019s a way underrated defender in this league. We trust him. We\u2019ll put him on (Brandon) Ingram. We\u2019ll put him on (Jamal) Shead. He can guard multiple guys. He\u2019s not backing down. He\u2019s physically stronger than you think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Merrill comes off the bench to add his 3-point shooting and defensive stinginess. Dean Wade is an underrated defender as a starter who is usually assigned the opponent\u2019s best shooter. That role belonged to Isaac Okoro before Okoro was traded to the Bulls last summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cDean has been phenomenal at both ends,\u201d Cavs guard Donovan Mitchell said. \u201cHe\u2019s rolling, he\u2019s screening, he\u2019s defending. He\u2019s doing everything. His impact is extremely high.\u201d<\/p>\n
Atkinson expects a loud and rowdy crowd to boo the Cavaliers and inspire the Raptors, just as the Cleveland fans in a sold-out Rocket Arena gave it to the Raptors every time a Toronto player was on the foul line. The Cavaliers, 52-30 overall, were 25-16 on the road in 2025-26. They lost the only regular-season game they played in Toronto this season \u2014 110-99 on Nov. 24.<\/p>\n
Atkinson believes his team will be ready to handle the adversity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a veteran team,\u201d the second-year Cavs coach said. \u201cThey understand we don\u2019t want to come back to Cleveland 2-2. (The Raptors), obviously they\u2019re going to be home with one of the best crowds in the NBA.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to resist their first hit physically and then mentally deal with being on the road. It\u2019s a big game for us. It would be huge to go up three.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the Cavaliers do win on April 23 they would have a chance to sweep the series when they face the Raptors at 1 p.m. April 26 in Toronto. Game 5, if necessary, would be April 29 at Rocket Arena at a time to be determined.<\/p>\n
Cavaliers at Raptors<\/p>\n
What: Eastern Conference first round, Game 3; Cavs lead series, 2-0<\/p>\n
When: 8 p.m., April 23<\/p>\n
Where: Scotiabank Arena, Toronto<\/p>\n
TV: PRIME Video<\/p>\n
Radio: WMMS-FM 100.7<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is a whole lot more fun, not to mention a whole lot more successful, to be the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3590,6795,1785,49,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-15475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto","8":"tag-cleveland-browns","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-toronto"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}