ECF: | (1) Cleveland Cavaliers vs (2) Toronto Raptors | CLE 2-1

[NinjaBro]

The Cavs caught the Rapss off guard, the lack of preparation was very apparent. After the Raptors steal game 2 it should be a very tight series.

Don't think it was Cavs catching us off guard. It was more likely that the coaching staff saw how the Cavs blew atlanta out by shooting 3s at such a high clip and they overcompensated for that, abandoning our defensive schemes we've had for the whole year. Don't know what we can do though. It's basically pick your poison, have Lebron and Kyrie crush you one on one or have the Cavs hot 3pt shooting wreck you. Lebron is locked in, it's so extremely tough now to win a game.

[LivingLegend]

i think the biggest concern for the cavs in the finals will be the rest vs. rust thing if/when they sweep the raps and not having a real test in the playoffs before the finals. i think this series going 6 would benefit cleveland more then a sweep

Some believe they could have won a title last year if three members of their eight man rotation weren't hurt - during playoff games. Cavaliers will risk the rust and take just 4 games if they can manage it.

No real test? The Hawks/Raps were a combined 104-60 this year. Thats a pretty darn solid winning %. Those are 2 good teams but the Cavs are just that good.

Eventually this is going to have to shift from "the East sucks, everybody blows, this is unfair" to "holy crap the Cavs are on a 12 game winning streak, best in NBA, against playoff caliber teams. They are really damn good"

The whole East sucks narrative is getting overblown. The Raps and Hawks were both good teams this year. The Raptors were chasing the Cavs for the #1 seed the entire year only being a game behind them. The Cavs are just taking it to a whole nother level and should be recognized more for how well they are playing and not "how bad the east is"

[jbk1234]

Really the problem is that Stanley Johnson is still in LBJ's head.

[infinite11285]

Cleveland has 6 different players shooting 45%-55% from 3 this postseason coupled with 2 of the best penetrators in the game (James/Irving), 2 of the best passers in the game (Love/James), and 2 of the best rebounders in the game (Love/Thompson).

That's crazy stuff.

[Dupp]

The Cavs caught the Rapss off guard, the lack of preparation was very apparent. After the Raptors steal game 2 it should be a very tight series.

Don't think it was Cavs catching us off guard. It was more likely that the coaching staff saw how the Cavs blew atlanta out by shooting 3s at such a high clip and they overcompensated for that, abandoning our defensive schemes we've had for the whole year. Don't know what we can do though. It's basically pick your poison, have Lebron and Kyrie crush you one on one or have the Cavs hot 3pt shooting wreck you. Lebron is locked in, it's so extremely tough now to win a game.

Yeah your team clearly overreacted to the 3 point shooting rampage we've been on.

Still without a great 1 on 1 defender ( and sorry Carroll is not even close to that) it's pretty damn hard to guard lebron. Even with no jump shot at all he will murder teams that single cover him and if the team doubles or collapses the paint he's passing is elite it opens up our ball movement and 3 point shooting.

You guys can guard us a lot better though and a lot of it was the energy levels of the two teams. Besides team defense two focuses should be Bismack getting more than 4 boards ( he needs 10+) and Lowry not taking so many transition threes. They're horrible shots. Maybe they worked in reg season but they aren't working in the playoffs.

[Prokorov]

east is a joke. hopefully free agency changes that a bit

[NinjaBro]

i think the biggest concern for the cavs in the finals will be the rest vs. rust thing if/when they sweep the raps and not having a real test in the playoffs before the finals. i think this series going 6 would benefit cleveland more then a sweep

Some believe they could have won a title last year if three members of their eight man rotation weren't hurt - during playoff games. Cavaliers will risk the rust and take just 4 games if they can manage it.

No real test? The Hawks/Raps were a combined 104-60 this year. Thats a pretty darn solid winning %. Those are 2 good teams but the Cavs are just that good.

Eventually this is going to have to shift from "the East sucks, everybody blows, this is unfair" to "holy crap the Cavs are on a 12 game winning streak, best in NBA, against playoff caliber teams. They are really damn good"

The whole East sucks narrative is getting overblown. The Raps and Hawks were both good teams this year. The Raptors were chasing the Cavs for the #1 seed the entire year only being a game behind them. The Cavs are just taking it to a whole nother level and should be recognized more for how well they are playing and not "how bad the east is"

You just have to filter out the salty Heat's fans in this thread who is just relishing their opportunity to dump on the Raps and not giving the Cavs credit. Makes me chuckle really how salty and what an embarrassment they are.
The East sucks narrative is obviously overblown as they've clearly gotten better with more parity. It's just that Lebron is really really good.

[Crazomali]

Nominating yoyoboy as the best GB poster

[Prokorov]

Some believe they could have won a title last year if three members of their eight man rotation weren't hurt - during playoff games. Cavaliers will risk the rust and take just 4 games if they can manage it.

No real test? The Hawks/Raps were a combined 104-60 this year. Thats a pretty darn solid winning %. Those are 2 good teams but the Cavs are just that good.

Eventually this is going to have to shift from "the East sucks, everybody blows, this is unfair" to "holy crap the Cavs are on a 12 game winning streak, best in NBA, against playoff caliber teams. They are really damn good"

The whole East sucks narrative is getting overblown. The Raps and Hawks were both good teams this year. The Raptors were chasing the Cavs for the #1 seed the entire year only being a game behind them. The Cavs are just taking it to a whole nother level and should be recognized more for how well they are playing and not "how bad the east is"

You just have to filter out the salty Heat's fans in this thread who is just relishing their opportunity to dump on the Raps and not giving the Cavs credit. Makes me chuckle really how salty and what an embarrassment they are.
The East sucks narrative is obviously overblown as they've clearly gotten better with more parity. It's just that Lebron is really really good.

more parity? sure... but still a mess and really a poor conference with just 1 legit contender and really not even 1 fringe contender. the raptros were a good team, but there was no realsitic chance of them, or the hawks getting through to the finals or giving cleveland a series. in the west they might not get out of the first round.

[G35]

i think the biggest concern for the cavs in the finals will be the rest vs. rust thing if/when they sweep the raps and not having a real test in the playoffs before the finals. i think this series going 6 would benefit cleveland more then a sweep

Some believe they could have won a title last year if three members of their eight man rotation weren't hurt - during playoff games. Cavaliers will risk the rust and take just 4 games if they can manage it.

No real test? The Hawks/Raps were a combined 104-60 this year. Thats a pretty darn solid winning %. Those are 2 good teams but the Cavs are just that good.

Eventually this is going to have to shift from "the East sucks, everybody blows, this is unfair" to "holy crap the Cavs are on a 12 game winning streak, best in NBA, against playoff caliber teams. They are really damn good"

The whole East sucks narrative is getting overblown. The Raps and Hawks were both good teams this year. The Raptors were chasing the Cavs for the #1 seed the entire year only being a game behind them. The Cavs are just taking it to a whole nother level and should be recognized more for how well they are playing and not "how bad the east is"

I get that. I see the Cav's playing well, they are destroying their opposition.

But then I see the "look at the Hawks and Raptors regular season record....they must be quality competition."

First off, the RS means nothing.

Pistons 44 wins did not win them one game
Hawks 48 wins did not win them one game
Raptors 56 wins got them blown out by 30+

If you want an example, look at the BCS and how teams stack up in bowl competition. Just because you can beat down your own division does not mean anything outside of your conference.

Cav's fans are in such a quandary....they want to beat up every team in the East but when they do it shows the lack of competition. Even Raptor fans know this isn't a fair fight......

[Syd-TK3]

Honestly this was more of the Raptors Losing then Cleveland winning.
Didn't even remotely look like the same team I saw against the heat in game 7

Even if Game 7 Raps would've showed up, the final score would've still been 140-116 seeing as no CLE starters played in the 4th whereas Biyombo and Lowry played 42min and the other 3 >34min in Game 7, and ya'll still shot 45% whereas Cavs shot 55%.

I think ya gotta give us more credit than it was just an off night for the Raps that gave it away and CLE didn't take it.

That score assumption is a huge exaggeration.
Comparing the percentages of 2 different games is meaningless when I already mentioned how differently they played in the 2 games.
Im not sure how many Raps games you watch but for me and majority of other fans it was obvious to see that defensively they completely switched their game plan because of how scared they were of the Cavs shooting and it threw off all our rotations/sets. It was literally the complete opposite defensive scheme from what we have run all year.

I'm not saying we would have won or anything like that just making a point since people seem to think this is how the series will play out every game

[Crazomali]

For real I'm glad the raps are facing against an historic team. They will get an enormous amount of experience from this drubbing and come back next year battle tested, rugged, and experienced squad. I have to be happy with this result it could have been worse i.e losing in the first round so to hell with the haters this squad did great imho they overcame fear in the first round, beat an hall of famer in the second, and lose to an all time great in the ecf. Now nobody expected that out of the raps in the beginning of the season most of yall expected them to take a step back or something so all this might be too much for you to take in lol. Anyways I'm going to enjoy this short series and for sure this nba finals will be great.

[whysoserious]

more parity? sure... but still a mess and really a poor conference with just 1 legit contender and really not even 1 fringe contender. the raptros were a good team, but there was no realsitic chance of them, or the hawks getting through to the finals or giving cleveland a series. in the west they might not get out of the first round.

Can we stop overrating the West if you're going to continually downplay the East?

The Cavs are one of the top 3-4 teams in the league and if they were in the West I doubth they'd drop anywhere beyond third. The Clippers and Blazers despite being good teams are not on their level. The Cavs sleep walk through a large portion of the regular season, if they were in the West, they'd play harder and come up with a similar if not better record. And they'd easily get past the first round out West too. Second and third rounds would provide tougher matchups but the Cavs are still good enough to win those, it would just be a tougher road to the finals.

[improper]

The playoffs is proving the Cavs did indeed sleep walk thru the entire regular season. It also appears their regular season drama was manufactured by LeBron for attention especially after the Warriors had basically clinched the best record by January.

I don't think they were sleep walking. I think they had some legitimate chemistry issues they needed to work out, coupled with a mid-season coaching change. They just happened to work those issues out at the best possible time, and the new coach is a guy that everyone on the roster is willing to play hard for every night.

[jbk1234]

The playoffs is proving the Cavs did indeed sleep walk thru the entire regular season. It also appears their regular season drama was manufactured by LeBron for attention especially after the Warriors had basically clinched the best record by January.

I don't think they were sleep walking. I think they had some legitimate chemistry issues they needed to work out, coupled with a mid-season coaching change. They just happened to work those issues out at the best possible time, and the new coach is a guy that everyone on the roster is willing to play hard for every night.

"They felt they were doing this for LeBron," the person familiar with the internal workings of the team said, "instead of with LeBron."

Lue changed that the moment he first told James in a huddle, "Shut the [expletive up]. I got this," according to a person who heard the exchange -- and a few others like it. If Lue was going to get the stars and the role players to buy into the strategic changes he was determined to implement -- play faster, space the floor, move the ball, take full advantage of Love's versatility -- he was going to have to restore order first.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/in-taking-control-of-lebron-tyronn-lue-has-created-a-monster-in-cleveland/

[AndriPerdhian93]

There is no way rap can win. This series only delusional or homer thingking like that

[Crazomali]

Only way raps can win game 2 is if the Cavs don't take us seriously because of what happened in game 1 and focus on who will be their finals opponent. That's how we can sneak out a win in Cleveland before heading home #Allpartoftheplan

[Sisqo]

No I don't think the raptors can win but saying they are the worst team in ECF history is just plain dumb. Look T their record vs the west, look at the overall record. They are inexperienced and battling injuries and still need to grow. Saying they are the worst in history just shows how much of a blind hater some people are

[Throwback24]

east is a joke. hopefully free agency changes that a bit

You can start by holding up your share of the bargain, and with all of the picks you sent the Celtics they're in now in a position to leverage players+picks for a potential superstar.

The East is only getting better. Not to forget, the Raptors have the 9th pick in the draft.

[NinjaBro]

east is a joke. hopefully free agency changes that a bit

You can start by holding up your share of the bargain, and with all of the picks you sent the Celtics they're in now in a position to leverage players+picks for a potential superstar.

The East is only getting better. Not to forget, the Raptors have the 9th in the draft.

No kidding lol. That's rich coming from a Nets fan of all people. Taking a dump on the East when they themselves will be in shambleland for the next 5+ years.