In first postseason loss, Cavaliers getting a taste of adversity
TORONTO – The Cleveland Cavaliers are playoff mortals after all.
Three-pointers don’t fall at record pace every game. Dunks and easy layups are not standard fare.
The Cavs don’t win every playoff game.
For the first time in the postseason, the Cavs lost a game, dropping Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals 99-84 to the Toronto Raptors on Saturday. It was the Cavaliers’ worst game of the playoffs.
“We just had a bad night,” Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said. “Our team knows that we can play better than we played.”
Cleveland shot 35.4% from the field and 34.1% on three-pointers. Kevin Love (three points) made one shot and Kyrie Irving (13 points) three shots, and they were a combined 4-of-28 from the field.
“It's good for them,” LeBron James said of Love and Irving. “First little adversity, first individually in a long time, and it's good for them. Obviously, we don't want two of our big guys not to shoot the ball. It's going to be difficult for us to pull the game out like that.
“But those guys will be better. They'll watch the film, and they'll be much better on Monday.”
James said in Cleveland the Cavs would face adversity at some point during the playoffs. Don’t know if this counts. James said it does.
“It is a little adversity. Why not? It's the postseason, and you lose a game,” James said. “This is our first loss of the postseason. I would count it as a little adversity.
“We've got to go back to the drawing board. Not fix everything, just fix a few things, and be much better on Monday.”
The Cavs have been dominant during the postseason but had the lead in Game 3 for less than a minute. Cleveland allowed 33 points in the second quarter, and it trailed by 18 points in the second quarter, its biggest deficit of the postseason.
“Early on at the start of the game, we weren't as physical as we should have been, especially coming into a building that we knew we had to be a little bit more physical,” James said. “Understanding they were going to play with a lot of speed, a lot of force, so we didn't start the game as physical as we should have at the point of attack.
“Also I think we lost track of some of our keys that we came into the game with. Allowed us to kind of get sidetracked throughout the course of the game. Then in the second quarter, our second-quarter lineup didn't do a great job of paying attention to detail, and they were able to bust the game open and score 33 points in that second quarter. They had 39 for the whole second half. Allowing them to score 60 in the first half is not the type of game that we want to play.”
Throughout the playoffs, the Cavaliers have shown a tendency to give up points at times, but their defensive shortcomings were hidden by offensive firepower. The Cavs are not unbeatable and have issues to resolve. It’s a little wake-up call for Cleveland, but nothing that indicates a larger issue.
"These are the games that really build the character of our team," Irving said.
If that's true, then the loss isn't so bad for Cleveland.