After the electric atmosphere of the Toronto Raptors game three win, hopes were high going into Sunday’s game four that the Raptors could even out their series against the Cavaliers. While Thursday’s game was a must-win to keep Toronto alive in this series, Sunday was their last chance to get a win in a non-elimination game scenario, and just as important to their longevity in this series.
After truly one of the weirdest games of basketball, the Raptors were able to edge out the Cavaliers in the final
minutes to bring the series to 2-2. With a final score of 93-89, it was a gritty, gruelling rock fight that often got physical and relied heavily on defense, rebounding, and taking advantage of every single possession.
The 1 pm start made this game a slog to start for both teams. A low-scoring first quarter led to a defensive battle from both teams, and the Raptors’ being active on the glass helped mitigate their lack of shot-making. They started to warm up as the second quarter dwindled, and Ingram’s buzzer-beater at halftime was the momentum they needed to go into the break up two points over the Cavs.
The real action came in the fourth quarter, though. In a game that kept flipping leads, every posession counted for both teams. Scottie Barnes and Collin Murray-Boyles came up huge for the Raptors on most posessions — getting deflections, rebounds, and disrupting the Cavaliers offence enough that they started making messy decisions and fouls.
It also helped that the crowd at Scotiabank Arena was absolutely electric, despite the early start time. That noise and energy from the fans helped the Raptors find it in them to get this win.
One play in particular had Jamal Shead diving for the basketball to cause an 8 second violation on James Harden, a huge turning point for the game. In the final minutes, the Raptors ability to get stops and ensure that Cleveland couldn’t get ahead of them at the last second showed incredible poise in the moment. Barnes’s six clutch free throws were the deciding factor as Cleveland started fouling late in the game, and thr crowd propelled them to the end.
Ingram had a better game as well, and despite shooting 6-for-23 scored 23 points on the night. To be fair, everyone had a terrible shooting night — the Raptors shot 32% from the field while the Cavaliers shot 36.8% from the field. It was his defence that impacted the game the most, and he looked less discombobulated on the court than he has all series long. Hopefully the shot selection and accuracy improves more in the next game, but he showed up enough to help them get the win.
With the series now tied at 2 games per piece, we head back to Cleveland for game 5 on Wednesday. It will not be an elimination game, which relieves the pressure a bit for the Raptors, but it will still be tough. The first two games in Cleveland were hard, and the crowd will only be more intense as the series gets more competitive. Regardless of the result of Wednesday’s game, the series will return to Toronto for game 6 on Friday night.
