Raptors’ waning sense of urgency proves costly in tight loss to Cavaliers

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CLEVELAND, Ohio – He almost got his wish.

Before his team took the floor against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday Darko Rajakovic only had one expectation above others: Play with urgency.

The Raptors arrived on the shores of Lake Erie in good form having won three of their previous four games, two straight, and all with the kind of offensive panache that can cause a team to begin to feel themselves a little bit.

There was a team dinner on Saturday night, a chance to sleep in on a chilly, rainy morning when the team’s morning shootaround was made optional. The vibes were good.

But that only lasts as long as winning does, and Cleveland – even as they’ve been struggling to find their rhythm so far this season due to injuries – represents a stiff test.

“We need a lot of urgency,” said Rajakovic. “We won the last two games, we played well against Chicago [in a blowout win Friday], and we cannot get satisfied with that. You know, we came over here we want to stay hungry and at the same time, stay humble. We’ve got to go out there and really be the team that wants it more.”

It’s not clear which team wanted it more – it was a competitive, hard-played game to the final horn in what ended up a 105-102 win by Cleveland that was decided – for the most part – by some impressive late-game offensive execution and some superior bench production prior to that.

Toronto hung tough. After trailing by as many as eight midway through the fourth quarter, a triple by Dennis Schroder on a nice pass by OG Anunoby pulled the Raptors to within a point with 15 seconds left before the Cavaliers’ Donovan Mitchell hit a pair of free throws with 9.6 seconds left to put Cleveland back up by three. A well-defended three-point attempt by Gary Trent Jr. – he was trapped in the corner with seven-foot Jarrett Allen draped all over him – missed and that was that.

The loss dropped Toronto to 8-9 as they head to Brooklyn on Tuesday while Cleveland improved to 9-8. The Raptors had six players with at least 11 points and none with more than Pascal Siakam’s 18. Jakob Poeltl was solid all game against the Cavaliers’ size as he finished with 18 points and 13 rebounds but in general, Toronto struggled to score, wasting a good defensive effort of their own. Cleveland was led by Darius Garland who had 24 points and eight assists.

The Raptors’ urgency – not to mention their attention to detail – began waning in the second half and in the early part of the fourth quarter especially as Cleveland slowly took control of the game. As good an indication as any were a pair of offensive rebounds by little-used Cavaliers veteran Tristan Thompson who – having already out-muscled Pascal Siakam for a putback score late in the third – won a loose ball battle with Scottie Barnes to set up a triple by Caris LeVert that put Cleveland up by seven with 11 minutes to play and brought the crowd at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse to its feet in appreciation for the ‘old’ man hustle. Thompson scored again on another offensive rebound he won over Jakob Poeltl. It was an inspiring seven minutes by the 32-year-old who was almost out of basketball last season.

By the time he went back to the bench, the Cavs were up by seven. The Raptors could only wish they could get that kind of bench production as most of their swoons – a lull to start the second quarter and especially midway through the third and crossing over the fourth – coincided with Rajakovic trying to cobble together bench-heavy lineups, a task even more difficult when point guard Dennis Schroder had to sit a long stretch after picking up a fourth foul.

It was all part of a second-half turnaround as Cleveland had overcome a 10-point Raptors lead thanks to a 20-point explosion by Max Strus in the third quarter, making up for a scoreless first half with four triples and then some, and benefitting from the effortless dribble penetration by Darius Garland that put the Raptors in defensive rotations over and over again.

The Raptors were missing anyone who seemed ready to respond and the by-committee approach that had worked well in the first half began to flounder. Toronto couldn’t find their rhythm offensively from anywhere as they shot 41.6 per cent from the floor, 8-of-32 from the three-point line and – in what has become a disturbing pattern – a miserable 20-of-29 from the foul line.

Cleveland shot 46.4 per cent and 10-of-31 from three after going just 3-of-16 in the first half.

The Raptors’ offence has thrived recently against some of the weaker defensive teams in the league and while Cleveland ranked 15^th coming into Sunday, they were the top defensive team in the league a season ago as they won 51 games and earned the fourth seed in the East before being upset in the first round of the playoffs by the New York Knicks. With their defence already solid, Cleveland added a pair of elite shooters – Strus and Georges Niang – in free agency giving them one of the most well-rounded lineups in the league. With Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland to break down defences, Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley as lob threats, and the added shooters, Cleveland came into the season as a popular pick to make some noise in the East if the likes of Boston, Milwaukee, or Philadelphia falter.

The Raptors certainly did their part in the first half to play with the kind of energy that has helped fuel their recent play, and in so doing, met the pre-game expectations of their coach.

Toronto led 28-25 after the first quarter after an opening 12 minutes that was borderline textbook stuff: Six different players scored, none with more than six points and Toronto had eight assists on 13 made field goals.

Any questions about how Toronto would manage to deal with the Cavs’ pair of mobile seven-footers who are capable of challenging almost any look at the rim were answered pretty quickly as first Barnes and then Poeltl scored in tight, both thanks to some smart interior passes.

But the most impressive part of the Raptors start was how they managed when the Cavs turned to an active zone on multiple possessions, challenging Toronto to shoot over it. It didn’t go well as the Raptors got stuck in the halfcourt mud as they often do, but eventually, they simply decided to beat the Cavs up the floor and score before Cleveland could get their defence set. It helped that the Raptors were getting enough stops at the other end to get out in the open court. Three consecutive transition baskets gave the Raptors the lead after they had fallen behind 19-11.

Toronto made another push in the second quarter after Garland capped a 13-0 Cleveland run with a pair of triples that put Cleveland up by six. But Toronto was determined, again reflecting the tone set by Rajakovic pregame.

“This is the NBA and in the NBA on any given night if you’re motivated and you’re focused and you have a lot of energy, you have a chance,” said Rajakovic. “And I think we have a really good chance if we do that tonight and it has to be from the jump ball and there has to be that huge energy that we need to come off of our bench as well. We need our bench to support our starters.” 

Making shots helps, of course, as threes by Barnes, Anunoby and Trent Jr. – who provided exactly the pop off the bench Rajakovic was looking for – were the backbone of an 18-0 run in response that put Toronto up by 12 on the way to a 52-42 lead at the half. 

But their first-half urgency could only take them so far.

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