The Cleveland Cavaliers and Toronto Raptors face off tonight in their second matchup of the season, the first of which the Raptors won 110-93 in Cleveland. Toronto holds the best record in the Eastern Conference (15-4), even though the Cavs started the season as the favorites to win the conference.
Cleveland seems to have turned a corner and are riding a five-game winning streak, and are coming off a hard-fought 90-87 win over the New York Knicks on Thursday night. Toronto has won two games in a row, the latest coming in a 123-104 win over the Utah Jazz.
To help us preview this showdown, we caught up with Emerson from Raptors Cage to break down Toronto.
Which of Toronto's offensive players should Cleveland worry about the most?
Kyle Lowry. He's a strong point guard with a bulldog like mentality. He's the team's main facilitator, can use his body to leverage contact and get to the rim, and he's a solid three point shooter. He's also a very crafty player, adept at putting his body into a player and drawing the foul on a mid-range jump shot. Especially with DeMar DeRozan out he's the team's focal point and offensive catalyst.
Which offense/defense matchup should fans keep an eye on?
Obviously there's the LeBron James vs. Terrence Ross/James Johnson match up. The reason why the Raptors have had so little success against James is because they've never really had that big bodied defender who can limit James's forays to the basket. Johnson represents their best solution to this problem.
However, the match up that I think deserves a lot of focus is the one between Anderson Varejao and Jonas Valanciunas. Valanciunas, while showing promising strides, has struggled at times getting a body on his man and boxing out. This is a huge problem for the Raptors when they go up against a relentless player like Varejao. The Raptors are in the lower half of the league in rebounding and need to make a concentrated effort of keeping Varejao off of the glass. Offensively, Valanciunas needs to be a bigger part of the offense in this game. With DeRozan out and Cleveland lacking a true shot blocking presence, Valanciunas needs to take advantage for the Raptors to win. Whoever wins this match up will be a key factor in which team wins the game.
What's Toronto's biggest weakness right now?
Perimeter defense. Rebounding is an issue, but a lot of those issues stem from dribble penetration and rotating bigs being out of place when the ball goes up. The Raptors can struggle defending the three against good ball movement because of the penetration. Their defence usually tightens up in the fourth quarter, but it's an area that's been exposed already this season.
Who's the most underrated/under the radar player on the Raptors?
Patrick Patterson. He's a huge part of one of the best benches in the NBA. He's a stretch four who sees a lot of action during crunch time because of his quickness on the defensive end. On the season so far, Patterson has a +/- of 129. He's very valuable to the Raptors, evidenced by their middling stretchy of play when he was out with an injury last season.
What's your prediction for the final score?
Raptors over the Cavaliers 117-115. The Cavaliers have been playing much better since these two teams last met. However, look for Lowry to have a huge game and for the bench to carry them past the efforts of James and company. This will be a shootout, and should come down to the wire.
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