Cavaliers thrash Raptors again

The NBA playoffs are here. The games are tighter, the lights are brighter, and the narratives are getting thick. It can be a lot to keep up with but don’t worry we’re here to help. Throughout the NBA postseason, FanSided will be gathering together some of the most talented writers from our network for a daily recap of our favorite stories from the night before.

Welcome to The Rotation.

Toronto Raptors, #squadgoals

Ian Levy | @HickoryHigh | FanSided

Well, the Toronto Raptors came apart pretty quickly. After crawling back into their series against the Cleveland Cavaliers with two straight wins at home, the Raptors lost by exactly a bazillion points in Game 5. They trailed by merely a gajillion at the end of the first half but never really closed the gap. Cleveland’s win probability literally went off the charts before the second quarter was even over.

With their backs once again pressed up against the wall of elimination (their poor chiropractors), it’s time for the Raptors to reset and reevaluate. You know what that means: #squadgoals.

#SquadGoal No. 1: Maybe don’t stay out until two in the morning the night before a big game. Or, if a late night can’t be helped, maybe don’t spend it in a crowded casino where there are literally cameras everywhere to record your questionable decision making processes.

#SquadGoal No. 2: Figure out how to stop Horns Rub, like more than once. This is the Cleveland set where Irving or Dellavedova and LeBron run a high pick-and-roll with Frye or Love in the strong side corner and the other two wings on the weak side. Toronto got a key stop on this set at the end of Game 4, but otherwise the Cavs are scoring like 17.5 points per possession whenever they run this play.

#SquadGoal No. 3: Ride Jonas Valanciunas until the wheels fall off.

#SquadGoal No. 4: Have DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry save their HILARIOUS laugh-at-our-walking-disaster-sketch-comedy-schtick for the offseason. Leave the funnies to Bob Odenkirk and David Cross please, let’s get back to basketball.

#SquadGoal No. 5: Finish that GoFundMe page for Biyombo’s next contract.

#SquadGoal No. 6: Be better.

Cavaliers finding Love in a hopeless place

Gerald Bourguet | @GeraldBourguet | HoopsHabit

For a minute there, we almost forgot the Cleveland Cavaliers were the decisively superior team in the Eastern Conference Finals. Two straight losses on the road with everyone but LeBron James vanishing into thin air will do that.

Heading into a pivotal Game 5 back at Quicken Loans Arena, where the Cavs were a perfect 6-0 this postseason, the knowledge that the winners in Game 5’s with the series tied at 2-2 advanced 82 percent of the time weighed heavy on a fan base used to being let down.

From the Browns to the Indians to the Cavaliers, those long-suffering Cleveland fans have put up with plenty of misery in their time. Even with King James returning home, they’re still waiting on that first NBA championship.

Inexplicably dropping two games in Toronto felt like the most Cleveland thing in the world, even if everyone knew that the Cavs were the better team deep down. The same thing was happening to the 73-win Golden State Warriors; why couldn’t it happened in a sports town doomed to life without a championship?

Luckily for the Cavs, they found Love in a hopeless place.

To be fair, Cleveland didn’t really need Kevin Love’s 25 points on 8-of-10 shooting to win Wednesday night, since they completely dominated from the start en route to a 116-78 final score.

But after watching Love struggle so mightily in two games in Toronto, seeing him return to form in a pivotal Game 5 at home was a welcome sight.

With the way his game has reached its (Hawthorne) heights at home during this series, you could definitely say that Ohio is for Love-rs.

In Game 5, Cleveland’s defense carried the day. LeBron James finished with 23 points, eight assists and six rebounds, while Kyrie Irving supplied 23 points as well. But right from the beginning, the Cavs made a point of going to Love to get him in rhythm early. He started the game 6-for-6 as Cleveland built an insurmountable 65-34 halftime lead.

The result was a full fourth quarter of rest for the starters in a blowout win where the Cavs’ Big Three nearly outscored Toronto’s entire team.

That typical sense of Cleveland despair may have lulled some Cavs fans into a false sense of insecurity before Game 5, but most people knew the most likely result would be the Cavaliers moving on. Now that it’s looking more like a certainty, Kevin Love having a hand in moving them there can only be a good thing.

Though he’s only shot 38.7 percent from the field in 13 playoff games this year, Love has been blistering hot from three-point range, knocking down 44 percent of his long range attempts. He’s also averaging 17.1 points and a team-high 9.4 rebounds per game while posting the team’s second-best plus/minus (+9.8).

For the last two years, Love’s talents have been overlooked because of his injuries, his back-and-forth relationship with LeBron, the public perception that he’s soft, how he’s sometimes disappeared in big games — you name it.

But now that Love has encountered adversity for the first time in his playoff career — and overcome it with flying colors — that long-suffering Cavaliers fan base is one step closer to believing it can actually win a championship. The Big Three playing the way they did in Game 5 is exactly how it would happen.

The Warriors — a brutal matchup for Cleveland — are on the verge of being eliminated, and though the Thunder are proving to be a vicious opponent right now, Kevin Durant is 4-17 against LeBron James all-time. The Thunder would be a much more favorable matchup for the Cavs, provided they can upset yet another historically great Western Conference power.

If the Cavaliers manage to win one of the next two games against Toronto, however, they will need last night’s version of Kevin Love to win a championship no matter which team they face in the Finals.

The Cavs found Love in a hopeless place in Game 5. If that’s the same guy they have on their side for the rest of the playoffs, Cleveland might not be such a hopeless sports town a few weeks from now.

What Mark Jackson and company talk about when they talk over a 40-point blowout

Daniel Rowell | @Danieljrowell | Hardwood Paroxysm

In the fourth quarter of Game 5 between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Toronto Raptors, Cleveland held a 40-point lead, 100-60, and the ESPN broadcast team had run out of things to discuss. As a bench-clearing lineup of Mo Williams, James Jones, Richard Jefferson, Dahntay Jones, and Timofey Mozgov closed out the quarter at Quicken Loans Arena, Mike Breen, Jeff Van Gundy, and Mark Jackson discussed if Hawaii 5-0 or the Wire was the greatest TV show of all time. Luckily, I was there to poorly transcribe some of the conversation (don’t quote me). What follows are what Mark Jackson and company talk about when they talk over a 40-point blowout:

A little under 9 minutes remaining in the quarter, the broadcast returns from commercial to show the withering crowds at Jurassic Park.

Mike Breen (MB): The only people that we have to worry about are the ESPN Lawyers that have to deal with all this blowout time for you to say what’s on your mind.

Jeff Van Gundy (JVG): I’m going to try to stay employed here.

Mark Jackson (MJ): All these blowouts, the biggest shocker to me was Ernie Johnson beating the great Charles Barkley in the three-point shooting contest.

JVG: When did that happen?

MB: Last night.

[Recap of TNT’s three-point contest]
[Discussion of Mike Breen’s “great” free throw shooting and midrange game]
[Discussion of the fragile nature of a team after a blow out]
[Discussion of Rookie PG Delon Wright’s promising future]
[Discussion of Utah and the Pac-12]

JVG: UCLA Just made/signed a huge contract with Under Armor for $280 million and we’re saying the college kids can’t get any of it? Or here’s $20,000 for you?

MJ: I totally agree we should pay college players

JVG: And I love this idea from college coaches… “Oh well, the experience is so great.” Well, why don’t the coaches do it like that, take a few thousand dollars for a contract and do it for the great experience?

[5:26 remaining, commercial break]

[Mike Breen lede after commercial on Kyle Lowry’s performances in past 5 games]

JVG: What was that game show, where they were like “would the real somebody please stand up?”

MJ: To Tell the Truth, great show.

MB: Great Show?

MJ: That was a great show.

MB: If you’re just tuning in… [recaps]

JVG: “If you’re just tuning in, tune out.”

MJ: Mike, you acted like To Tell the Truth wasn’t a great show

MB: No, I thought it was a very good show. I don’t know that I can tag any TV game show with great

MJ: What about My Three Sons?

MB: That’s a completely different show. That’s a sitcom isn’t it?

MJ: Did you think it was a great show?

MB: No, it was a very good show

MJ: Well what was great to you?

MB: Oh there was a lot of them.

JVG: You can’t say Uncle Ernie wasn’t great.

MJ: You know anything about Good Times and James Evans?

MB: Yeah, it was another really good show.

JVG: Really good?

MJ: I might take my headset off right now and walk away, Mike. You got to give me great.

MB: Way back or current?

MJ: I’m saying you got to give me great.

MB: All in the Family. Seinfeld.

MJ: Can I get a brother in any of them? Sanford and Sons? Something?

JVG: He went straight Archie Bunker, too.

MB: Sanford and Sons was a great show. Great Red Fox, you could say that.

[JVG compliments a pass from Richard Jefferson]

MB: By the way best TV show of all time? The Wire.

MJ: Great show.

JVG: Hawaii Five-O.

MJ: NO.

JVG: Book’em, Danno.

MB: Who are you in Hawaii Five-O?

JVG: My only problem with that. Danno always said to Kono to tail’em and the dude always lost the tail every single time. Danno, quit giving him the tail responsibilities! It was so infuriating. It’s like sending a player out on the floor you know can’t defend and say, ‘Hey, guard James tonight.’

[2:30 left remaining and I can’t even]

I don’t know what’s better, that Mike Breen lists the whitest TV shows ever and then drops the Wire as his favorite, or that Van Gundy managed to rant about paying college players and Hawaii Five-O tails in the span of 10 minutes. Either way, it’s comforting to know Mark Jackson is a part of the bottom 20 percent of the RottenTomatoes.com reviewers that thinks everything is “great.”