What bummed me out about the Raptors loss is that Lebron won’t be playing like that again (12 for 30), so last night prrrrrrrobably should have been capitalized on, and sure wasn’t.
I don’t bet against him until the Finals. I’ve done pretty well for myself so far.
He did have a triple double.
Tonight’s game partially decides whether or not Dwayne Casey keeps his job. If the Raptors win, they may still beat Cleveland, and he may keep his job. If they lose they of course cannot beat Cleveland, and if they do not beat Cleveland he is one hundred percent certain to be fired. Someone will have to pay for the choke, and they can’t fire Demar DeRozan. Say what you will about LeBron, but there is no excuse for a healthy #1 seed to be eliminated in the second round.
You already said. It’s LeBron James. As much as I despise the guy, he’s unnaturally great at basketball. Like, better than just about everyone you’ve ever seen play the sport. He’s a generational player. He can in fact (and has, in the last series) carry a team on his shoulders. I don’t think this year’s version of the Cavs can sustain this and beat the Warriors in a championship series, but they can certainly beat a 1 seeded Toronto team. And that’s not even a poor reflection on the team. You’re right, you can’t win when you miss that many shots in crunch time. But the players did, and the team lost.
Blaming the coach for that is ludicrous.
It would appear that the people who said Indiana was just a particularly tough matchup for the Cavs were right.
Well, that was an upbeat game for the Raptors, as in, getting beat up.
Embarrassing.
Surprised if this isn’t a sweep now.
Last time the Raps were beat twice in a row at home - last year in the playoffs against guess who.
Did I mention embarrassing? (yeah yeah they’re dealing with Lebron, but still - major let down)
Some of the shots Lebron made were just not fucking fair. He’s not always been the best at creating his own shot but damn did he own Drake, er, Toronto tonight. He keeps that up and Toronto will be forced to rename the CN Tower, the Lebron Tower.
Meanwhile, Phila blew a 16-point lead. Celtics might have too much experience for the Sixers but we shall see. If Phila can win game 3 then it’s game on again.
Lebron is great but he’s beatable, and the Raptors simply choked. They lost by 18. Kevin Love was (by a wide margin) the second highest scorer of the game. The way they played last night they would have lost to every other team in the NBA.
I bow to no one in my respect for King James, but the idea he’s unbeatable is silly. Prior to this year he’d been in the league 14 years and HADN’T won a championship in 11 of them. Of course he is beatable, everyone is, especially on an otherwise so-so team; he has been beaten whilre leading teams better than this one. Toronto could beat them, based on talent. What they lack is heart.
Of course he’s not unbeatable. As you say, everyone is beatable. But before this series (actually, before this playoffs) there was a weird current in the conversation suggesting that the Cavs had no chance, that they were certain to lose. And as long as they’re employing the probably-second-best-but-maybe-first-best-no-way-am-I-having-that-conversation-right-now player of all time, they are never certain to lose.
And, on the other hand, while beating LeBron is, again, obviously possible, losing to LeBron should really not be a source of shame. I think all the “Raptors are choking” stuff is really minimizing the impact of having that guy on the floor. They’re not choking - they’re getting beaten by the PSBBMFBNWAITCRN player of all time. It happens.
You missed an H.
After yesterday’s game, I fairly certain murder isn’t illegal in Toronto - there’s no other way to describe what James did to the Raptors.
Well, of course that would be a silly thing to say.
It is, weirdly, a common thing for sports fans to say; “this team has no chance of winning/losing this game/series.” In most North American pro sports, that’s never true. Anyone who looked at the Cavs/Raptors series and said “I know for sure who’s going to win” was full of it. People talk certainty, but I notice they rarely fly to Vegas and bet everything they have on the “sure thing.”
But I’m going to push back; the Raptors are NOT simply being beaten by an alltime great. That is visibly not what is happening, just watch. They lost Game 1 with an epic fourth quarter meltdown in a game in which LeBron wasn’t dominating them at all, and they lost Game 2 with a complete second half meltdown where they would have lost if you replaced Lebron with any one of 100 other pretty good forwards.
And you don’t have to argue with me LeBron might be the best ever, because if he’s not now, he probably will be someday; he’s still going strong, he’s only 33, and could put up another 3, 4, 5 MVP type seasons.
Dreadfully, we may be headed for Cavs vs. Warriors Season 4.
LeBron had the opportunity to just take a normal layup or jump shot to finish off that game but he went for some weird ass floaty drifty sideways off the backboard stuff just to extinct the raptors and all their hope.
Maybe, the shot leaves his hand with about 2 seconds left in the game. Could he have gotten all the way to the basket? Did he know precisely how much time was left?
They need to remake Airplane! with Lebron as the copilot:
He may not be the GOAT but if I was drafting first and had to pick Russell, Jordan or James, I might just roll a die.
He could have, but the Raptors had that defended perfectly with someone planted right outside the charge circle. He had a step on Onunoby, but turning that in to a hard cut to the right plus getting over Lowry might have been enough for him to decide against it.
Or he decided to show off. The way the Cavs have been outplaying the Raptors, he wouldn’t be terribly worried if they went to OT if he missed.
Goddammit Golden State. Lose, motherfuckers, lose!
Much like anytime I see LeBron step back and fade away, when I saw him take a running jump for that floater my first thought was, “dammit LeBron, you can take it all the way in and at least draw a foul.” But damned if he didn’t make the shot and you just have shrug your shoulders because LeBron can do pretty much whatever he wants. The guy is unreal.
Seems as though Toronto is just waiting out the end of the season. Quite a third quarter with the climax being Demar DeRozan getting ejected for a flagrant 2.
I’ve got no clue what Masai is going to do, but it’s something. I’m curious to see which route he takes.
Absentminded prophet I am, I forgot to include the words “will be swept”. …I don’t hate the Cavaliers. To me it feels like they stumbled ass-backwards into a magic horseshoe winning the lottery 4 years ago and that feeling has never subsided. Atlanta trading Korver to them last year and then otherwise completely waiting until the offseason to start rebuilding was another break. I thought they kind of made out like bandits this year’s trade deadline and those pieces aren’t doing all that much, so I’ll give it up to 'Bron.