The Cleveland Cavaliers have pushed the Toronto Raptors to the brink of elimination with a 125-120 victory in Game 5. The Raptors have persevered through numerous obstacles already this series, including having to play without starting point guard Immanuel Quickley.
Their road to stealing the series just became more difficult. Toronto could be without its leading scorer from the regular season, Brandon Ingram. He left Game 5 in the first half with right-heel inflammation. This was a previous injury
that he was playing through, but aggravated in the second quarter. He’s officially listed as questionable for Game 6.
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It’s fair to point out that Ingram has struggled this series. The Cavs have done a good job of keeping him from being a lethal midrange scorer by sticking defensive specialist Dean Wade on him. They’ve also sent a fair amount of double teams his way, especially in late shot clock situations.
This has added up to him averaging an underwhelming 12 points on .324/.444/.769 shooting splits in five playoff games. Scoring just one point in Game 5 brought these averages down. Even so, those numbers are considerably less than the 21.5 points on .477/.382/.820 shooting splits he had during the regular season.
Despite the poor player, not having him on the court would hurt Toronto’s offense. The Raptors are already at a play creation deficiency without Quickley. Losing Ingram just puts more on the plate of Scottie Barnes and RJ Barrett, who were both already shouldering a large offensive load.
Ingram’s absence will mean that the Cavs can shift more of their defensive attention and better defenders towards Barnes and Barrett. This could make what was already a difficult task even harder.
On the other end, the Cavs have a clean injury report heading into Friday’s matchup.
