Here’s the National Post reporting on the Raptors, down 0-1 in their series, and their quest to contain the Cavs, which mostly means trying to somehow contain LeBron James:
When the Raptors added Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker at the trade deadline, it gave them extra bodies to throw at LeBron. Between the new guys and DeMarre Carroll, Patrick Patterson and the occasional defence of DeMar DeRozan, Toronto had a host of players with the size and speed to, at the least, get in James’ way.
They did precious little of that in last year’s playoff matchup, and coming into this series it seemed likely that Toronto would try to impede, annoy, frustrate and just generally bother James. Instead, LeBron scored what looked like an effortless 35 points in Game 1 and grabbed a beer from a courtside vendor. If you have ever seen a cat wound a mouse and then take an agonizingly long time to get around to finishing it off, that was LeBron on Monday night. (The Raptors were the mouse.) …
So, could the Raptors try to ugly it up in Game 2 on Wednesday? More traps on James, more double teams, more attention and some of it even legal?
“All that’s in play,” Casey said Tuesday. “We gotta get a little closer (to them). I don’t know if they felt us last night whatsoever. We were half a step off, respecting their speed a little too much. We gotta make them feel us a little bit better.”
