Preseason Recap: Raptors 119, Cavs 94 (Or, Are We Done Yet?)

John Kuntz, cleveland.com

Toronto came into the Q and approached this preseason game like it was an actual game for all four quarters. The Cavs did that for approximately eight minutes at the beginning of the game. Without LeBron James playing, the team forgot how to exert their will. They forgot how to play both offense and defense.

The Raptors pushed the ball up the floor relentlessly and scored 32 fast break points. They shot a staggering 57.7% from the floor. Kyle Lowry lit the Cavs up in the first half scoring 25 points on 6-9 shooting from the floor and 3-4 shooting from deep. He hit all ten of his free throws and had six assists in only 20 minutes. And, when he left the game, his back up, Corey Joseph, was just as dominant. Joseph had 17 points on 7-10 shooting in just 19 minutes.

Seeing those two stat lines makes it hard to believe that the Cavs actually raced out to a 20-8 lead in the first three minutes of play. They came out looking to be decisive with the ball. Kyrie Irving and Iman Shumpert were barely dribbling, and the team was passing to find the open man. They took their time and hit six of their first seven shots, five of which were assisted on.

Tristan started the night with a nice drive to the hoop after Kyrie hit him with the ball near the right elbow. TT returned the favor a couple of plays later and shuffled the ball to Kyrie for a baseline jumper. Kevin Love then hit a pick and pop three when Kyrie drew the attention of two Raptors. Shump finished off the run when Irving found him for a long ball early in the shot clock before Toronto got down the court.

TT cleaned up the one miss during this run.

https://vine.co/v/5XQ39TZO6Od

The night slowly went down hill after that run. During the final seven minutes of play in the first, the Cavs turned the ball over five times off of bad passes. Cleveland kept trying to force the ball into the middle of the floor. It didn’t help that the Cavalier bigs (mostly Kevin Love) seemed averse to coming to the pass or sealing their defenders. The Raptors took advantage of each mistake to get ten points, which helped propel them on a 19-11 run the second half of the quarter. Toney Douglas and DeAndre Liggins checked into the game for Irving and Shumpert with a few minutes to go and couldn’t produce. The Cavs ended the quarter ahead, 31-29.

The second quarter was completely sour for the Cavs. They trotted out Channing Frye (he left early in the quarter with a right ankle injury and did not return), Chris Andersen, John Holland, Douglas, and Liggins. That group was incapable of stopping Lowry. Lowry blew by every body, and when he wasn’t doing that, he was pulling up from beyond the arc. He had 17 points and hit three deep balls. Irving faced the majority of Lowry’s onslaught when he came back into the game to finish out the quarter. Cleveland couldn’t keep up offensively. They started to dribble too much and seemed to just jack shots. Toney Douglas pretty much refused to pass the ball. During the seven minutes he was on the floor he actually passed the ball just once. Cleveland also got murdered in transition. The Raptors attacked an unset defense for probably half of the quarter, which resulted in them outscoring the Cavs by 21 points. The Raptors walked into the locker room up 69-50.

https://vine.co/v/5X2KDmv3WIH

The third quarter wasn’t pretty, but it at least started off with some back and fourth between the two teams. Kyrie quickly found Love deep on the left block with a bounce pass. Love went up and got an and-1. Corey Joseph then burned Shump to get a layup. He got by everyone en route to ten easy points. Much of the quarter was a back and fourth affair. TT baited Jonas Valanciunas into fouling him for two freebies; a few plays later JV hit a 14 foot turnaround jumper over TT.

Kay Felder was the first Cav off the bench in the quarter and took Irving’s spot. He pretty much just dribbled around aimlessly. He tried to drive a few times, but despite Love spacing the floor for him, Kay struggled to get the space necessary to get off a decent shot on both of his attempts, and then got repeatedly smoked by Joseph. The Cavs went into the fourth down 73-95.

The fourth quarter was all scrubs for both teams. The Cavs rolled out John Holland, Corey Jefferson, Jonathan Holmes, and Markel Brown. Liggins, Felder, and Jordan McRae saw time too. Nothing really stood out. Felder had two assists off drives that looked decent. Ultimately, the Cavs couldn’t even mount a run in the fourth. They turned the ball over seven times and lost by 25.

Gripes

1.Watching this game, I just thought “is it over yet,” the whole time. It was excruciatingly boring. The training camp invites all want to dribble the life out of the ball. Each dribble just took away my will to not fall asleep. All these guys are doing is gunning. What really baffles me though is why the coaches are letting them do this? Why do the coaches play the invites with each other?

2. These guys will never play with each other during the regular season because most of them won’t be on the team. Why not play them with the guys on the roster they might be around? If the coaches were to do that, they could at least see if the invites thrive around talent. Maybe some of them work better when they are working with a spaced floor?

3. Since that isn’t the case, I guess the coaches have to fall back onto the practice of seeing which of the scrubs looks better than the other scrubs.The coaches need to see a guy fighting for a roster spot stand out really clearly. If you can’t dominate a non-NBA roster man, how can you even compete with an opposing rotation level guy? Tonight, none of the Cavalier invites showed the flashes of brilliance needed to be in the league.

4.Kay Felder may have an NBA career, but he needs to learn how to finish better. He threw up some bizarre misses near the rim. At one point, he sort of tried to granny heave the ball in. Part of his problem is actually his leaping ability. The guy jumps super high, but he is fully exerted just to be at the height of a regular sized NBA player protecting the weak side at the rim. Felder should work on staying ground bound a little more and working the glass like Kyrie does when he gets deep in the paint.

5, Obviously, Cleveland’s defense has got to be better. None of the point guards stayed near Lowry. They gave up on every screen. TT was probably on Lowry more than Irving was.

Kyle Lowry did it all tonight in just 20 minutes.

6. Toney Douglas needs to pass the freaking ball. He is not the solution at back up point guard. He is either hunting for a shot, or looking to pass the ball. He lacks the ability to read the floor.

Hypes

1.Early on, the Cavs offense was moving the ball with great speed. They were finding open shooters without dribbling the ball, which is a new development for them.

2. Kyrie seems more comfortable off the ball and let Iman bring it up the court a decent amount of the time when they shared the floor. Iman wasn’t awful. He’s not the best dribbler, but he mainly dribbled just to get the team into their offensive sets. He wasn’t trying to get his mid range jumper.

3. Kevin Love went 5-11 for 19 points. He looked confident taking threes and hit 3-6. He tried to back down into the post several times, but he kept having the ball poked away.  At one point, LeBron James was giving him pointers on posting up during a commercial break. Love also showed some of his dribbling ability when he hit a beautiful floater by splitting two defenders after catching the ball while rolling to the hoop in the third quarter.

4. Chris Webber taught me two things tonight: 1. Iman Shumpert‘s wife is an athlete. 2. LeBron is going to buy me popcorn if I go to the first game of the season, which is why he was eating popcorn at the game tonight.

Webber went on some weird tangents this evening to avoid talking about the game. Marv Albert kept indulging him.

Thinga I've learned tonight : Chris webber is weird as hell. Talking about grown men getting spankings.

— HoopsDogg (@oldseaminer) October 14, 2016

5. There are only two more games until the regular season starts.