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CLEVELAND — White dress shirt, white sports jacket, white bowtie, white three-quarter-length dress shorts, white socks, and a pair of his own signature basketball shoes. Whether or not they were the same pair James Harden wore 45 minutes earlier during the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 126-113 Game 1 win over the Toronto Raptors is unknown.
What we do know is that it takes a certain kind of superstar to have the confidence to make an outfit like this work on an overcast and rainy Cleveland spring day. And Harden is exactly that kind of star. The kind that the Cavs have needed in their last few postseason runs.
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Being able to dictate the terms of a series doesn’t mean that you’ll win it. It does, however, force the other team to beat you at your own game.
The Cavs were able to do that in Game 1. They kept the Raptors from running in the open court and forced them to outscore them in the half-court. And you have to be well oiled machine in the half-court if you’re going to beat a Harden-led team that way. The Raptors are not.
Harden made the difference here.
There are All-Star caliber players, and then there’s ones who’s presence causes the entire defense to shift. Every time Harden had the ball, the defense needed to adjust to account for what he could do. Whether it was sending players his way in the pick-and-roll or simply shading over to hopefully cut off his pathways to the hoop, the Raptors were aware of where he was on the court at all times.
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“It’s the thing that makes everything click,” head coach Kenny Atkinson said about Harden. “He gets us clicking. It’s like a quarterback that’s super accurate. He’s just kind of picking them apart with short passes.”
That opened everything up for his teammates. Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley didn’t have the gaudiest scoring totals, but they were incredibly efficient. Six of the duo’s 11 combined field goals were assisted by Harden.
The Raptors don’t have an easy way of stopping the Harden pick-and-roll.
Jakob Poeltl is more of a drop big in the pick-and-roll. Like most centers, he doesn’t have the footspeed to be at the…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/13-takeaways-cavs-132-126-011808062.html
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Publish date : 2026-04-19 01:18:00
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