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James Harden surveys the court during Game 1 against the Raptors on April 18. (Tim Phillis – for The News-Herald)<\/p>\nSuddenly, it is Game On for the Cavaliers in their Eastern Conference quarterfinal series with the Raptors.<\/p>\n
The Raptors, like a wounded beast, got up off the floor at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto in the fourth quarter April 23 to outscore the Cavs, 43-23, and steal Game 3, 126-104.<\/p>\n
Game 4 is set for 1 p.m. April 25 in Toronto. The Cavaliers will take a 3-1 series lead into Game 5 on April 29 at Rocket Arena if they prevail. A Raptors victory would square things at 2-2 and mean a return trip to Canada for Game 6 on May 1 regardless what happens midweek in Cleveland.<\/p>\n
James Harden surveys the court during Game 1 against the Raptors on April 18. (Tim Phillis – for The News-Herald)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest thing for us is to not overreact,\u201d Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell told reporters in Toronto. \u201cIt\u2019s one loss. The sky isn\u2019t falling. We have to understand we weren\u2019t going to go 16-0 if we are going to achieve what we want to achieve.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou give credit where credit is due, and then we go back and fix it. It starts with our force. They\u2019re trying to protect homecourt, and now let\u2019s see how we respond. That\u2019s the biggest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cavaliers protected home court in the first two games, winning 126-113 and 115-105 in Cleveland, but they did not overwhelm the Raptors in either game.<\/p>\n
Despite the lopsided final score, Game 3 followed a similar pattern until the Cavaliers\u2019 defense cratered in the fourth quarter. The Raptors canned 8 of 9 3-point tries and 17 of 23 shots overall from the field in the final 12 minutes. The Raptors pulled down five offensive rebounds, the Cavaliers one defensive rebound in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
RJ Barrett scored 16 points and Jamison Battle 14 points for Toronto in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a tough, resilient group,\u201d Barrett told reporters. \u201cWe\u2019re going to fight. The first two games \u2014 we\u2019re a young team without much playoff experience. I think (Game 3) gave us some confidence. We\u2019re in this series. When everybody plays hard, locked in on the game plan, we can make some noise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said the Raptors did a better job defending in the paint in Game 3, making it difficult for Mitchell and James Harden to drive to the hoop. Now the Cavaliers have to find a way to counter the adjustments the Raptors made, Mitchell said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were aggressive, and we didn\u2019t match that,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cEven with that, we were right there. We just didn\u2019t execute. When you\u2019re not as forceful as the home team and they start making shots with the crowd behind them, you get the result we got.\u201d<\/p>\n
The turnover numbers reflect how the Cavaliers took their foot off the gas defensively. The Cavs forced Toronto into a season-high 22 turnovers in Game 2. The Raptors turned the ball over only 11 times in Game 3.<\/p>\n
Cavaliers at Raptors<\/p>\n
What: Eastern Conference quarterfinals (Cavs lead, 2-1)<\/p>\n
When 1 p.m., April 26<\/p>\n
Where: Scotiabank Arena, Toronto<\/p>\n
TV: ESPN<\/p>\n
Radio: WMMS-FM 100.7<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Suddenly, it is Game On for the Cavaliers in their Eastern Conference quarterfinal series with the Raptors. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1481,6795,996,49,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-19523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto","8":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-toronto"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19523","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=19523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}