CLEVELAND—It didn’t take long for the Toronto Raptors to realize they were up against something different, something bigger, perhaps by orders of magnitude. It wasn’t just LeBron James being able to hold off grown men with one arm, then explode past them like they were bad memories. It was that his teammates could impose themselves on them, too.
“Even though we beat them twice during the regular season, they’re definitely a different team,” said DeMar DeRozan, a day after Toronto lost Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final to Cleveland 115-84. “You’ve got to give Bron the credit.