NBA Playoffs 2017: Cavaliers vs. Raptors: 3 takeaways from Game 4

The Cleveland Cavaliers have eliminated the Toronto Raptors from the NBA Playoffs for the second straight year.

The cliched definition of insanity is to try the same thing over and over while expecting different results. For the Toronto Raptors, their insanity shows in their attempts to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers.

After getting swept this postseason, the Raptors will spend the offseason pondering their next moves. Kyle Lowry will opt out of his deal and become a free agent. Mid-season acquisitions Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker are free agents. Despite the Raptors’ success in the past two seasons, the best stretch in franchise history, it just wasn’t enough to ever beat the Cavaliers.

Game 4 was the best game of the series. The Raptors had their best performance from start-to-finish, playing with energy and physicality throughout. They even had the lead at one point in the fourth quarter, 93-92. It took a Kyrie Irving superhuman fourth-quarter effort — he scored 11 straight for the Cavs at one point — to seal the win. Tucker stepped up and was arguably the best player for the Raptors in Game 4, scoring 14 points with four 3s and snagging 12 rebounds and four steals.

Unfortunately for the Raptors, Tucker wasn’t the only player to step up in Game 4. Cavaliers supernova, dead-eye sniper Kyle Korver had one of those explosions that tends to happen to the best shooters on the planet.

The Raptors deserve a ton of credit for their performance over the past two years. But now the future is as cloudy as ever. Here are three takeaways from Game 4.

Takeaways

Korver is a supernova: Including Game 4, teams with Korver are 8-1 when he scores at least 18 points this season. (Two of those games came with the Hawks) Anytime he’s on the floor, he’s the worst shooter to leave open while helping. Korver was 4-6 from 3 and finished plus-12 with an offensive rating was 121.1.

Korver was everywhere, hitting 3s in either corner and three at the top of the arc, though one was called off due to a foul that took place before the shot. GM David Griffin traded for Korver for this exact type of game: The Cavs need a spark and who better than the guy who’s lead the league in 3-point-percentage five times?

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As Irving and LeBron James get their points, and with Kevin Love’s performance dropping each game a series goes further, Korver’s instant offense will be a huge boost as the Cavaliers enter the Conference Finals.

Kyrie Irving is a playmaker: Well, at least for this series. Irving is having his worst postseason from the field, averaging less than 40 percent and less than 30 percent from 3. The long-standing criticism of Irving’s game — besides his defense, in which I show my own predisposition for insanity by hoping this is the game we see it — is his one-dimensional offensive game. He can score, but he doesn’t do much else.

At times during Game 4, Irving went full Irving. He helped keep the Raptors in it, shooting 3s early in the shot clock or isolating and driving to the rim for a contested shot. But he finished with nine assists in Game 4. In fact, he averaged 8.5 assists for the series, including two games where he went over 10 dimes.

If Irving can continue setting up his teammates, it will go a long way to hold over his lack of scoring production while he works through his shooting slump. We saw a reminder how disruptive Irving can be to opposing defenses when Irving took the Cavs offense in his own hands in the fourth quarter.

The Cavs have to stop with the lulls: The small picture is Game 4 in the Eastern Conference semifinals. The big picture is the NBA Finals if the Cavs fulfill projections. The talk has been about the switch on defense. We know by now it’s not there, but the Cavs are still prone to lulls where they have low energy and forget to do what makes them so good.

To start Game 4, on two early drives, Tristan Thompson and Irving went up with weak floaters Jonas Valanciuanas easily swatted away. LeBron was lazy off at times off pick-and-roll. The Cavaliers looked like a team up 3-0 in a close-out game. They bounced back, but this is not the time to fall into bad habits.

It’s as if the Cavaliers never panic because they’re simply waiting for the moment their talent makes up for the gaps in their play. And, to be fair, though it takes several possessions of hero ball, Irving and LeBron do deliver, sparking their teammates into more movement without the ball and better defense on the other end.

The Cavs can get away with it against the Raptors and Pacers — and maybe even the Boston Celtics or Washington Wizards in the Conference Finals. Their superior talent won’t let them lose to those teams. But if they beat the Wiz or Celtics, they’re going to run square into a Western Conference powerhouse, meaning the Golden State Warriors. They won’t have the superior talent in that series and won’t be able to wait for the moments LeBron or Irving or Korver bail them out.