James finished with 43 points and 14 assists on the evening with Kevin Love adding 31 points with 11 rebounds in support.
The series returns to Cleveland for game three Saturday night with the Cavaliers up two with a chance to put the Raptors down a deep hole...
Swashbucklings
1) Just when you think LeBron James has shown you what he can do and you cannot be surprised any further, James steps up and shows you again just how good he is.
Last night against Toronto, James was hitting fadeaway jumpers against good defense and he was still knocking them down.
James kept dropping back and the shots kept falling,
On nights like these, opponents aren't going to defeat LeBron James very often.
2) Toronto has to be shaking their heads, especially after a first half that saw them shoot extremely well, their home crowd was loud and rocking and yet the Raptors led by just two at the half.
How many times in sports have you seen this "They played almost as good as they can and the opponent played terribly and the game is close, look out in the second half" line play out in sports?
This game was one of those nights for the Raptors and they had to know it entering the locker room.
3) Kevin Love lives.
Love scored 31 points and did it with 11 of 21 shooting with only two from three-point distance.
When Kevin Love is playing well, this Cleveland team is an entirely different animal and perhaps some of that might be when he tries to score inside the paint rather than force three-pointers.
No matter the reason, Kevin Love's performance is the key to how this team plays.
4) Cleveland struggled against Indiana to get any scoring from anyone other than LeBron James, but the offense has been able to add some varied production against Toronto.
J.R.Smith with 15, Jeff Green 14 and George Hill finished with 13 to give Cleveland five players in double digits.
Toss that type of production with an excellent game from Kevin Love and LeBron James is going to get all the help that he needs.
5) So, rumors of the Cavaliers demise were a bit exaggerated to paraphrase Mark Twain, but it isn't just one thing for Cleveland's bounce back from a less than strong series against Indiana.
Yes, LeBron James has literally choked the Raptors to death in these two games on the road and we mentioned a few things above, but maybe Toronto's stars (DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry) don't match with Cleveland as well as Indiana's (Victor Oladipo and five others that average between 11 and 14 points a game) do.
Toronto also doesn't have an attitude guy like Lance Stephenson to harass and annoy LeBron James.
Sometimes in sports, a better team with a better record isn't always automatically a more difficult team to defeat,
It could be that Indiana is a better team than I thought or simply that they match up better with the Cavaliers than the Raptors, who won eleven more games than the Pacers in the regular season.
6) Is this series over?
Even with the next two in Cleveland, I wouldn't go that far yet-BUT Toronto has defeated the Cavaliers in Cleveland just once in the last ten tries and that was in the final game of the 2016-17 regular season when with nothing onthe line, Cleveland rested most of their top players.
SO considering all of that, Toronto will now have to defeat the Cavaliers twice at the Q.
Possible, but unlikely and right now the Raptors are wobbling to the E.R- a loss on Saturday and Barney the dinosaur will be on full level oxygen.
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