Raptors throw kitchen sink, Ingram goes ice cold, and Poeltl hits the bench in Game 2 loss
Lots of talk about adjustments, playing harder, playing smarter, and the like. Lots of talk about playing to strengths, maintaining identity, and meeting the moment. Well, the moment came and it was time to meet it. RJ Barrett put it best:
“Relaxed? Never. Never. Yes, in terms of the nerves, for sure. But, definitely not relaxed. That sense of urgency… this game is very pivotal. We gotta go out and get a win tonight.”
No adjustments came in the way of defensive assignments among the starters as they opened the same in Game 2 as they did in Game 1. The Raptors, perhaps unwavering on the idea of putting anyone else in the unenviable position of guarding James Harden, walked Barrett out there to try again. It was a better start than the last game, ball contain team wide was better, but still imperfect. Harden poses those kinds of problems. The Raptors obviously highly value the spy position from Barnes as he creeps off of Evan Mobley. They’d need a more impactful and disruptive performance from him than they got in Game 1.
Offensively, the Raptors bent it gratuitously towards Brandon Ingram early on. More bring up ball handler possessions, out screens to put him in pick n’ rolls, more screen craft in general, but Ingram started 0-4 from the field. It was a welcome reminder that despite all the hand wringing and dialogue about Ingram’s usage, the Raptors scored the ball at an okay level in Game 1, but really struggled to defend the Cavaliers. Along with the relatively poor finishing, the Raptors had a fairly consistent lack of composure in their decision making early on, which led to a handful of turnovers. Almost 1 per minute.
Similar to Game 1, the Raptors went to AJ Lawson right away, except this time he was more active as a screener on offense. A ghost screener to cause disruption and chaos in the Cavs backcourt defensively and a spacer. He fit into a nice 5-out lineup for the Raptors that started to score the ball a bit better while launching from downtown (Walter in particular made a couple) while pushing pace. A much easier job with Harden on the bench admittedly — Mitchell is easier to speed up — but a job well done. They were a more dynamic lineup as well on defense, introducing more blitz & recover into how they played Mitchell. Unfortunately for the Raptors, Mobley was on point as a cutter and finisher on the offensive side while gumming up a lot on the defensive end.
The Raptors defense reached a much better level. It started with CMB, I think, but the level of compete-contain-compete-contain they had throughout possessions went up by an order of magnitude. They switched more often, blitzed more often, and stayed connected as a 5-man unit. Linked not by rope, but by shared, common ideals of defense. The Cavs role players were less effective with the added pressure.
The shot quality compared to game 1 was far worse, but unfortunately for the Raptors, both Harden & Mitchell are top class difficult shot makers and were putting on a show. The arena damn near erupted when Harden dropped Barnes with a cross and banged a step back triple. The possession prior he hit a heavily contested, doubled triple as the shot clock expired. Pure wizardry. Still though, the Raptors were only down 7. Barrett was imperfect, but indomitable in spirit. Murray-Boyles was unbelievable for a rookie. Barnes carried over some of the jump shooting from Game 1, but the Raptors were still waiting on some dominance.
We got a funky, and successful look with Barrett on Jarrett Allen. It helped the Raptors keep Barnes out near the ball to apply pressure, and to scurry back into thing as a defensive playmaker after being switched in or out of actions. Still though, Mitchell & Harden continued to farm some points. Really standout plays, time after time as shot makers or with crafty last second lay downs to their bigs.
Despite all the struggles dealing with the Cavaliers stardom, the Raptors were only down 6 at halftime (54-48). They’d thrown enough mixed coverages at the Cavs to keep them guessing about how to dissect things, and they’d made the game theirs in terms of the pace and rebounding. Building blocks.
Wanting to capitalize on the gumption they saw from their upstart rookie in the second half, Murray-Boyles, started the second half. Unfortunately the team as a whole came out and made a few mistakes that were juxtaposed against some jump shooting from the Cavs. The 6-point deficit found its way to 11 in short order. The Raptors took two early timeouts to talk things over. The second one came after Barnes & CMB took turns blocking Allen & Mobley on the same possession, but the rest of the team couldn’t come together to recover the ball, leading to a Harden iso bucket on Ingram. The change in approach was how to deploy the doubling/blitzing, and where the help should come from. It helped slow down the Cavs scoring a bit.
It got to a point where Barrett was basically the only capable and dependable creator in the halfcourt for the Raptors. He was resilient, clever, and tough. He produced. The Raptors were getting nothing like that from their two All-Stars, unfortunately. They kept pushing and scoring in the open court, which was really important, but it was clear that the Raptors couldn’t solve the Cavaliers offense — it was why I was so worried about the Cavs matchup, as opposed to the Knicks — but they were also very clearly struggling to score against a Cavs team that ranked 18th in defense since Harden’s arrival (and 15th overall). The Cavaliers were having a much easier time ameliorating their limitations and flexing their advantages than the Raptors were.
With neither team playing their best, the final quarter fell upon us with the Raptors in a 7-point deficit, 84-77. The Raptors were here despite forcing more of the ball to Ingram, sustaining a terrible halfcourt offense, and getting only 4 points on 11 shots from their leading scorer. The stage was set.
The important, early bucket from the Raptors was a pick n’ roll with Barnes as the handler and Murray-Boyles as the screener. Barnes smash mouthed his way, crab dribbling the whole time, to the rim. Murray-Boyles pushed Allen deep under the bucket (Gortat-adjacent screen), and Barnes muscled his way for an and-1. The Raptors need to flex these muscles over the course of the series.
In the end though, the Raptors didn’t have enough juice. Even when they could grind and work their way to a bucket, real manufacturing, laborious and triumphant, but paling in comparison to what the Cavaliers could do. It was, of course, trading 2’s for 3’s, but in some cases trading nothing for something.
The Raptors scraped and clawed, with rookies, with young guns, without their big starting center, and with their hot shot scorer putting up a 2-14 performance. They came up empty.
On to Game 3 and the cozy confines of Scotiabank Arena.
Have a blessed day.
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