LeBron James and the Cavaliers continue their trudge back to the NBA Finals, winning Game 1 in Toronto. Meanwhile, Golden State looks to continue its unbeaten streak at home in these playoffs in Game 2 against the Pelicans. Follow along here for the latest analysis and commentary from The Post's NBA reporter Tim Bontemps, and ask him questions in the comments section. Catch up on yesterday's games here.
Schedule | Pregame reading | Comments section Q&A
• The Raptors had to win Game 1 to put their playoff demons to rest. Instead, they blew a late lead and then lost in overtime.
The Cleveland Cavaliers managed to do something no LeBron James team had ever done Tuesday night.
Cleveland's 113-112 victory over Toronto in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series was the first time in 138 career playoff games for James that his team managed to win without ever leading in regulation, according to ESPN Stats and Info.
It also was just the second time in the last 20 years a team had won that way. The first? Game 4 of the Western Conference finals in 2011, when Dirk Nowitzki scored 40 points to lift the Dallas Mavericks to a 112-105 overtime victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder and take a 3-1 lead in that series.
Ironically, that win helped push Dallas past Oklahoma City — and to the NBA Finals, where the Mavericks would beat James, then with the Miami Heat, in six games to win the title.
Maybe Stephen Curry should have started after all.
After Warriors Coach Steve Kerr made the odd decision not to start Curry in Game 2 of Golden State's series against the New Orleans Pelicans, the two-time NBA most valuable player made his entrance to a deafening roar with 4:20 to go in the first quarter, and with the Warriors trailing 19-11.
Curry, of course, promptly hit a three.
Golden State proceeded to score 16 points over the final minutes of the first — with Curry scoring eight of them. His return brought the sellout crowd here at Oracle Arena to its feet, and his shooting performance made it serenade its favorite son.
By early in the second quarter, the Warriors had come all the way back into the game, taking a 40-38 lead on a Klay Thompson jumper, and this game felt like it was threatening to get away from the Pelicans.
Through four quarters, the Toronto Raptors never trailed.
They still lost.
In a game Toronto absolutely had to win to prove it was past its previous playoff foibles, the Raptors did exactly what they could not: completely implode in the final minutes. The result was the Cleveland Cavaliers emerging with a 113-112 victory in what will become the latest chapter in an ever-growing book of ugly Raptors losses.
After not scoring a single basket over the final 4:19 of regulation — missing 11 straight shots, including four inside the final 10 seconds that would have given Toronto the lead — the Raptors still wound up with the ball again with 16 seconds to go in overtime, and with it a chance to salvage a win out of a game Toronto controlled the vast majority of.
But just as he did at the end of regulation, Fred VanVleet missed an open three pointer, and Cleveland secured the rebound to come away with the win.
This is a game that's going to sting for a long time in Toronto. Cleveland just finished its brutal seven-game first-round series against the Indiana Pacers on Sunday, while Toronto had four days to rest since beating the Washington Wizards on Friday. And, after spending months working to secure home court in this series, Toronto finally could start out a matchup with Cleveland in the friendly confines of Air Canada Centre.
All of that only adds up to make this loss all the more painful for a Raptors team that simply had to have — and now will have to spend two days thinking about how it blew it.
LeBron James finished with a triple-double — 26 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists — to lead Cleveland, despite shooting just 12-for-30 from the floor. Meanwhile, Cleveland went 14 for 35 on three-pointers — including 13 for 27 after removing James' 1-for-8 showing.
Toronto got 22 points from DeMar DeRozan and 18 and 10 assists from Kyle Lowry — but 19 of those points from Toronto's backcourt came in the first quarter, when the Raptors raced out to a 33-19 lead. Jonas Valanciunas had 21 points and 21 rebounds, but went just 7 for 19 from the floor, with all but one of those shots coming in the paint, and all but one of those outside the immediate vicinity of the basket.
Stephen Curry — surprisingly — is coming off the bench for Golden State.
Despite not being on a minutes limit, Curry is starting Game 2 on the bench for the Warriors in their Western Conference semifinal against the New Orleans Pelicans, as Steve Kerr opted to stick with the same starting lineup he had in Game 1 – Andre Iguodala, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green and Nick Young.
Curry had been expected to start, but after waiting until the last possible second to reveal his starting lineup – about 15 minutes before tip – Warriors Coach Steve Kerr had Young in it instead.
The Toronto Raptors should have won this game going away.
Instead, Game 1 of their second-round series is going to overtime.
The Raptors have missed 11 straight shots over the final four-plus minutes of regulation — including four in the final 10 seconds that could've given them the lead — to give Cleveland a chance, and the Cavaliers took advantage with LeBron James making a fallaway jumper with 30 seconds left to tie the game at 105.
All of the momentum has to be in Cleveland's corner right now, as the Raptors looked incredibly tight down the end of regulation.
As this game ticks into the final few minutes, the Cavaliers have gone to the lineup that started Game 7: LeBron James at point guard next to J.R. Smith, Kyle Korver, Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson.
The question remains: Why didn't Tyronn Lue use this lineup to start the game? George Hill has largely been ineffective in this game, and this is Cleveland's best lineup in this series, as it allows them to have someone to bang on Jonas Valanciunas and still has lots of shooting on the court.
Cleveland has been behind virtually this entire game. We'll see if this group can get the Cavs over the top in the final minutes.
Cleveland is going to have a decision to make down the stretch.
Kevin Love came back in early in the fourth quarter and made a couple of quick shots to, once again, get the Cavaliers back to within five points. But when he's been matched up with Jonas Valanciunas during this game, he's gotten beasted inside repeatedly.
Tristan Thompson has once again played well for the Cavaliers in the paint, and has the heft to body up the Lithuanian big man down low. If this game is close in the final minutes, Cavaliers Coach Tyronn Lue could have to choose which of his big men will be on the court. So far in this game, Thompson is the one who has earned the time.
Stephen Curry is ready to make his return …
The third quarter was a roller coaster for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
But as the game shifts to the fourth quarter, Cleveland only trails by five — and after LeBron James got a breather at the end of the quarter, as he did at the end of the first.
That, in the end, feels like a win for the Cavaliers, who now will get James coming back for the entire fourth quarter having gotten six minutes of rest in this game – more than most of the games in the last series against the Indiana Pacers.
After Jeff Green kept Cleveland in the game early, Kyle Korver kept them in the game in the third, and now has 16 points in the game on 4-for-8 shooting from three. If the Cavaliers are going to win this game, though – and put a dagger in the Raptors in the process – they'll need James to have his typical huge close to finish this off.
With Kyrie Irving gone, Kevin Love is supposed to be the Cleveland Cavaliers' second star behind LeBron James.
So far in this game, he's been getting destroyed by the Toronto Raptors instead.
Love is now 1 for 8 — including 0 for 3 from three — and is getting beasted on the boards and in the paint time and again by Toronto whenever he is out there. For the game, Love is now minus-18 in a game Toronto leads by 11.
Given his struggles, and how well Cleveland played when Jeff Green was operating as the team's center in a super-small lineup in the final minutes of the first half, there might be a need to consider going in that direction moving forward to try to draw Jonas Valanciunas and the other Raptors bigs out of the paint to life more difficult for Toronto.
Remember a little while ago, when everything was going well for the Toronto Raptors?
Yeah, about that …
The second quarter of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinal series between the Raptors and Cleveland Cavaliers was a reminder of why Cleveland had so many people picking the Cavaliers to beat the Raptors despite their brutal showing against the Indiana Pacers and Toronto being both the top seed and having home court.
Toronto leads 60-57 at halftime, but all of the momentum is in Cleveland's corner after the Cavaliers outscored the Raptors 38-27 in the second quarter, going 5-for-9 from three-point range and steamrolling back into the game as the Raptors failed to carry over their strong start.
The Raptors seemed intent on turning LeBron James into a distributor. While he did lead Cleveland with eight shots, three other players had at least six and three others had at least four.
Instead of that leaving Cleveland adrift, however, it allowed virtually everyone to get in on the act in the first half, as the Cavaliers had all nine players who took the court score in the first half, including J.R. Smith going for 14 points — including three three-pointers — while Jeff Green was a perfect 4 for 4 from the field and the foul line to score 13 points.
James, meanwhile, had 11 points, six rebounds, seven assists, one steal, one block and — most importantly — just one turnover. Not b
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