Playoff Tune-In Tidbits: Tuesday, May 1, 2018

It’s taken a toll on the greatest player of his generation, without doubt, but, to the likely dismay of a Raptors team hoping to catch James when he’s vulnerable, none of that seems to matter.

This time, however, Toronto is the top-seeded team in the East after a team-record 59-win season.

The Cavs will need this contribution with more regularity, against their next matchup against the Toronto Raptors, the East.

“Just jumping from one team – where you’ve prepared for them every day for the last two weeks, seven games – not having much time to prepare for the No. 1 team in the Eastern Conference this year, is going to be a challenging turnaround for us tonight”, James said Tuesday morning before shootaround in Toronto.

The Cavs defense on Victor Oladipo was up and down, but I actually think he is a better player than DeRozan already. Can we? I’m exhausted. “But I don’t want to sit up here and give away our game plan, what we wanna do, how we wanna do it, what we wanna take away, what we wanna give them, that wouldn’t be prudent on my part”.

Understandably, some people will point towards James’ age, together with the fact this was the first time he played in all 82 regular season games.

Four-time All-Star guard DeMar Rozan said the Raptors must look for any edge they can, even if that means going at a exhausted James. And, the Cavs did just enough without him on the court. Back in the locker room, Cavaliers doctors wanted to administer an IV, James said, and he refused the treatment. With that we gained a tremendous amount of experience, of understanding what comes with it, what it takes to beat a team at that level.

After the Boston Celtics loaded up with All-Star talent in the form of Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward coupled with lottery draft picks Jaylen Brown from last season and Jason Tatum from the 2017 draft, it was considered a two-team race for Eastern Conference supremacy with the other preeminent power being LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers. He fought through the fatigue.

“There’s nothing like a game seven”, said Cleveland’s Tristan Thompson.

But while he was out at the start of the fourth quarter, something unexpected happened. Could this be it?’ That’s just human nature. James wouldn’t let that happen.

His rehabilitation was swift, and by the 13th game of the season he’d played his way into the starting lineup. Through seven grueling games against the Pacers, the 15-year veteran averaged a monster line of 34.4 points, 10.1 rebounds, 7.7 assists, 1.4 steals, and one block while somehow playing 41.2 minutes per game.

LeBron averaged 45.0 points per over the last three home games of the series against IN and posted a triple-double IN the opener.

“It was a huge stretch”, James said. He averaged 12.1 assists per 100 possessions this season. but managed just 4.7 when Anunoby was matched up with him.

Oladipo hit a 3 at the horn and was immediately embraced by James, who had never played a first-round Game 7 and was in jeopardy of seeing an eighth trip to the Finals end quickly.

After a slow start to the 2018 playoffs, Poeltl posted strong numbers in Games 5 and 6 of the first round.

Since the playoffs began, Cavs players and Lue have called James the “best player in the world” or something very close to that eight times in comments to reporters.

Game 2 is 6 p.m.

“I’m not saying he’s a lying man but I don’t think he’s exhausted”, Casey said. “Nobody thought we would be here”. While he struggled against the Warriors in Game 1 with just 11 points on 4-of-14 shooting, it’s clear that Holiday is ready for the national audience to know his name.

“This team was fantastic”, he said. There was no drama all season and everybody kept a positive attitude at all times.