{"id":613558,"date":"2026-04-19T02:01:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T02:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/613558\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T02:01:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T02:01:19","slug":"raptors-fall-to-cavaliers-in-game-1-as-toronto-returns-to-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/613558\/","title":{"rendered":"Raptors fall to Cavaliers in Game 1 as Toronto returns to playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tDescrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tIncrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/nba\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA<\/a> playoffs officially got underway Saturday, but the <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/toronto-raptors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Toronto Raptors<\/a> didn\u2019t get the start they were hoping for.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Toronto fell 126-113 to the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference first-round series, marking the team\u2019s first playoff appearance in four years.<\/p>\n<p>The playoffs follow the NBA\u2019s play-in tournament, which ran from Tuesday to Friday and determined the final two seeds in each conference.<\/p>\n<p>Teams that lost in the play-in were eliminated, while winners advanced to the first round.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767930311_275_national.jpg\" alt=\"Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you'll never miss the day's top stories.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n<p>Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you&#8217;ll never miss the day&#8217;s top stories.<\/p>\n<p>While the Raptors kept things close in the first half Saturday, Cleveland pulled away in the second, building a 21-point lead heading into the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n<p>RJ Barrett and Scottie Barnes led Toronto\u2019s offence, with Barrett scoring 24 points \u2014 the most ever by a Canadian in a Raptors playoff debut.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>For Cleveland, Donovan Mitchell scored 32 points, while Max Strus added 24 off the bench in a playoff career high. James Harden had 22 points and 10 assists, and Evan Mobley chipped in with 17 points and seven rebounds.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Sports<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Outside Scotiabank Arena, fans gathered in Jurassic Park, with many braving rainy conditions to watch the game.<\/p>\n<p>For many, the playoff atmosphere brought back memories of 2019, when Toronto captured its first NBA championship.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the Game 1 loss, fans said they remain confident the team can bounce back in the best-of-seven series.<\/p>\n<p>Game 2 is set for Monday in Cleveland.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Descrease article font size Increase article font size The NBA playoffs officially got underway Saturday, but the Toronto&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,459,82,3302,10676],"class_list":{"0":"post-613558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-toronto","13":"tag-toronto-raptors"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}