By Brandon Blake
In these playoffs, the Cavaliers are playing the best basketball right now by a team that is not named Golden State or Oklahoma City. For further proof of this, go back and see what the Cavs did in the second round to an Atlanta Hawks team that was a good defensive unit this season. The Cavs shot lights out in a four game sweep of the Hawks and advanced to the conference finals to face the Toronto Raptors.
The Raptors did win 55 games which is a franchise record and they did win the regular season series over the Cavs 2-1 and the back-court of Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan right now are playing well coming off a combined 63-point performance in a Game 7 victory over the Miami Heat.
But the Raptors in these playoffs have had shooting issues and have been inconsistent as they needed seven games to defeat the seventh-seeded Indiana Pacers team in the first round and they needed seven games to beat a Miami Heat team that played hard but was missing key players with Chris Bosh and Hassan Whiteside out. And now the Raptors face a Cavs team that is shooting the ball well and basically doing their best imitation of the Golden State Warriors?
This match-up does not bode well for the Toronto Raptors.
The Raptors also have to deal with injury issues as center Jonas Valanciunas will miss Game 1 with an ankle injury he suffered in the Heat series and is doubtful for Game 2. Raptors forward DeMarre Carroll is also having injury issues as well so now the Raptors have Bismack Biyombo going up against the Cavs front court of Tristan Thompson, Kevin Love and LeBron James.
I don’t see how the Raptors can compete with that. Bottom line, The Cavs just have too much fire power for the Raptors to try and stop and even though the Raptors may win one game, the Cavs will ultimately win the series and advance to the NBA Finals
Prediction: Cavaliers in 5.
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