(Photo by Ron Turenne/NBAE via Getty Images)
TORONTO – The Cavs find a way to gut out a hard fought victory on the road against the Toronto Raptors 113-112 in Overtime. LeBron has once again showed the Eastern Conference and the world that the road to the NBA Finals runs through Cleveland. The Cavs never led in this game until Overtime, in fact the trailed the whole game until they tied it up at 105 with 30 seconds left in regulation.
The Cavs of course were led by the Triple-Double performance from LeBron James, scoring 26 points, 13 assists, and 11 rebounds. But, the X-factor for the Cavs tonight was the performance from Jeff Green off the bench. Green was a handful for the Raptors to defend, and he created a spark with 16 points. Kyle Korver and JR Smith started to find their groove offensively. Korver scored 19 points going 5 of 12 from the 3-point line, and Smith added 20 points going 5 of 6 from behind the arch. Tristian Thompson played a meaningful 26 minutes with 14 points and 12 rebounds, giving the Cavs a lift on the boards.
The Cavs started off slow north of the boarder only scoring 19 points in the 1st quarter, and they trailed by as many as 14 points. The Cavs had a huge 2nd quarter scoring 38 points and cut the Raptors lead to 3 at halftime. The Raptors showed composer though and kept staving off the Cavs runs, even leading by 10 points early in the 4th quarter. The Raptors just did not have enough offense down the stretch.
The Raptors were led by DeMar DeRozan with 22 points, Kyle Lowry 18 points and 10 assists, Jonas Valaciunas had a monstrous 21 points and 21 rebounds. Coming off the bench for Toronto was Pascal Siakiam, giving the Raptors 22 minutes and 11 points.
Game 2 will come to you Thursday may 3rd at 6:00pm from Toronto right here on News Radio WTAM 1100.
Kipp Cullin WTAM 1100