{"id":631007,"date":"2026-04-27T02:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T02:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/631007\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T02:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T02:29:12","slug":"the-raptors-have-turned-their-series-with-the-cavaliers-on-its-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/631007\/","title":{"rendered":"The Raptors have turned their series with the Cavaliers on its head"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

NBA vet Donovan Mitchell went tumbling into the crowd to save a ball in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s Game 4, only to have Raptors rookie Collin Murray-Boyles (12) flex over him as the Raptors sealed the win.Cole Burston\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

With eight seconds left in Sunday\u2019s game and his team going under for the count, Cleveland\u2019s Donovan Mitchell chased his own rebound into the Toronto crowd. He never had a chance at the ball, but he did get two rows deep, ploughing over bodies. <\/p>\n

As the Cavaliers\u2019 star was untangling himself from a knot of Toronto one-per-centers, first-year Raptors\u2019<\/a> player Collin Murray-Boyles rushed to begin flexing over him. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just want everyone to feel that energy out there,\u201d Murray-Boyles said afterward. <\/p>\n

Rookies showing up vets, dogs and cats living together \u2013 that\u2019s how this series is going. <\/p>\n

Toronto won the game 93-89<\/a>. This thing was supposed to be over by now. Now, tied 2-2, it feels like it\u2019s just starting. <\/p>\n

Cathal Kelly: For the rich and (occasionally) the poor, live sports has become a tale of two fanbases<\/a><\/p>\n

When you\u2019re trailing by seven with three-and-a-half minutes to go and pull it out, you can\u2019t call that a bad win. But give the Raptors credit \u2013 they tried. <\/p>\n

Toronto shot 13 per cent from three-point range on Sunday. If a group of professionals stand with their backs to the basket, shooting blind over their heads, they should hit more than 13 per cent of their shots. Overall, the Raptors shot less than 32 per cent from the field. <\/p>\n

Those aren\u2019t terrible numbers. They\u2019re worse than that. They represent the lowest shooting percentage by a winning team in the NBA playoffs since 1969. <\/p>\n

Ahead of the game, Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson described the level of play thus far as an \u201cOlympic-style product.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which Olympics is that? The one they hold under water?<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Scottie Barnes and the Raptors won an ugly game on Sunday to even their first-round series with the Cavaliers. The pressure is on the contending Cavs to put away the young Raptors.Nathan Denette\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not so much that the Raptors are doing more, it\u2019s that Atkinson\u2019s team is all of a sudden doing much less. Mitchell (6-for-24) is part of the problem. The other half of the duo, James Harden, is another. With Harden, it\u2019s never the numbers. It\u2019s how he goes about getting them. <\/p>\n

Early in the fourth, when you still would have put money on the Cavs, Cleveland\u2019s Jaylon Tyson bulled his way to the basket, getting fouled in the process. <\/p>\n

Tyson, a young role guy whose career is just getting going, popped up and began slapping hands with teammates. Until he got to Harden, who screamed at him for not passing off. It\u2019s not teamwork as I recognize it, but I wasn\u2019t raised in Ohio. Maybe things work differently on the chillier side of Lake Erie. <\/p>\n

Over on the other bench, this Toronto team seems to actually like each other. It can be a bit over the top \u2013 the pre-game conga line by the subs has a strong smell of high-school theatre \u2013 but it doesn\u2019t come off contrived. <\/p>\n

When the Raptors rush in to help up a teammate who\u2019s been decked, you never see one or two guys lollygagging. They all hop to, whether it\u2019s Scottie Barnes laying stretched out on the floor or the 10th man. <\/p>\n

Generally speaking, when a team has come back down two games to none and tied it, you would say they have the momentum. Is that what Toronto has? From a technical perspective, they are playing awful basketball. It\u2019s gotten to the point where the Cavs don\u2019t even bother guarding the Raptors\u2019 best scorer on paper, Brandon Ingram, whenever he backs over the three-point line. They are convinced that given a free working permit, Ingram will brick up a whole house. He was better than he has been on Sunday, which tells you how bad he\u2019s been.<\/p>\n

So what are the Raptors working with right now? Self-belief? Cohesion? Or is it that they don\u2019t know enough to know they don\u2019t know enough. Whatever it is, something\u2019s working. <\/p>\n

Their goal this year was to make the playoffs and, once there, not look like they paid someone off for the privilege. That mission has been accomplished. They have stood and slugged with a serious NBA contender. Were they to lose now, no one would say they had failed. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

James Harden (1) and the Cavaliers must win Game 5 on Wednesday, while the Raptors may win it, Cathal Kelly writes.Frank Gunn\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a dangerous point for both teams. <\/p>\n

From Cleveland\u2019s perspective, they must win game five on Wednesday, while the Raptors may win. If they flag early, their own crowd will get on them. That town will turn on you like a rattlesnake. Given their history, they have good reason to. <\/p>\n

From Toronto\u2019s perspective, a whole new world is suddenly opening up to them. They have Cleveland on the ropes. They know they can shoot better than 32 per cent, because every team in basketball, including many grade-school house league teams, can can be better than that. <\/p>\n

Across the playoff bracket from them, Orlando is now one game up on the best team in the East this year, Detroit. Toronto would have home court advantage against the Magic. They played them twice in Toronto this year, and killed them both times. <\/p>\n

Then it\u2019s who? Boston? They look good, but not that good. Not as good as they used to. <\/p>\n

Is there a possible future where Toronto could make an absolutely out-of-nowhere run in the East?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how a team that has spent the last five seasons boring everyone but the diehards to sleep becomes this year\u2019s Toronto Blue Jays (since it\u2019s becoming clear that the Blue Jays don\u2019t want the job). <\/p>\n

Now, the Raptors get to indulge themselves in two days of hype. Since this particular group has never felt that while together, there\u2019s no telling how they react to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have any prejudice that next game is going to be this way or that way,\u201d Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said Sunday. <\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s fair to guess this isn\u2019t going to all of a sudden turn into golden-age Lakers vs. Celtics. And that\u2019s not a problem. <\/p>\n

Everybody loves a team that wins ugly, though you don\u2019t often associate the two things \u2013 winning and ugly \u2013 with basketball. Maybe the Raptors, operating ahead of their own schedule, can be the team that does things wrong that end up turning out right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: NBA vet Donovan Mitchell went tumbling into the crowd to save a ball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,2922,41,39,42,40,8023],"class_list":["post-631007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-noastack","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-topstory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631007","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=631007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}