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Heartbreak only happens when you put yourself in a position to make it possible.
The Cleveland Cavaliers had their souls crushed by an RJ Barrett three that bounced off the rim multiple times before falling through to give the Toronto Raptors a 112-110 victory and force a Game 7.
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The Cavs shouldn’t have been in that position. They didn’t bring the effort and focus they needed to close out a playoff series.
The defensive process was bad for the first three quarters.
Toronto lacks players who can create advantages for themselves off the dribble, particularly with the absence of Immanuel Quickley and Brandon Ingram.
Still, Cleveland’s defenders couldn’t stay in front of their assignment. And even if they did, one of the other four Cavaliers would find themselves stuck in no-man’s land, where they weren’t committed enough to cut off a drive, weren’t in the gaps to shut down passing lanes, and also weren’t close enough to their assignment to prevent an outside shot.
The Cavs didn’t lose this game in the fourth; they lost it in the first three quarters when plays like this were commonplace. The Raptors connected on 11-27 (40.7%) from beyond the arc through the first three quarters, leading to 91 points overall.
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Then, the defense flipped.
Cleveland locked in with the focus they should’ve had from the opening tip. They limited the Raptors to just 12 points in the fourth quarter on 4-17 (23.5%) shooting, which included going 1-7 (14.3%) from three.
It’s easy to look at the offensive outcome and judge how the defense played from there. However, limited scoring doesn’t mean there was good defense and vice versa. In this instance, the Cavs’ defense was actually good.
The help defense successfully cut off drives to the basket, as Toronto attempted just two shots in the restricted area and six in the paint overall. For context, they had an average of 9.3 shots in the paint per quarter before the fourth.
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Cleveland did this while being able to rotate back to shooters to either contest outside shots or actually prevent looks from going up entirely.
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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/13-takeaways-cavs-gut-wrenching-100000388.html
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Publish date : 2026-05-02 10:00:00
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