NBA - 503 Toronto Raptors @ 504 Cleveland Cavaliers
Projected Line: 192 points | Cleveland by 1 point
The truth is that even without Kyle Lowry and Andrea Bargnani, the Raptors are being very competitive with Jose Calderon leading the team. They played well against Brooklyn, they crushed the Mavericks (on a poor spot for Dallas) and they also defeated the Rockets on their last game. Toronto committed just 7 turnovers against Houston and that prevented the Rockets from having transition plays, as they shot just 2-7 FG on this kind of plays. On the other side, Toronto took advantage of Houston's errors to shoot 8-10 FG on transitions! Their second unit played small ball, with Terrence Ross, Alan Anderson and John Lucas executing some great fast break plays. The Raptors were
Toronto's offense is much more controlled with Jose Calderon. They commit a low number of turnovers, they are more efficient down low thanks to his good passing skills and this can make them be very efficient against Cleveland's defense that is #24 on pick and roll ball handler defense, #22 on post up plays and #7 on spot up plays. Cleveland isn't a good team on defending 16-23 feet shots and the Raptors tend to shoot a lot from this area. Toronto is playing with much more confidence lately and they have dished 72 assists for just 31 turnovers over their last three games - a 2.32 A/TO rate! The Raptors should be able to get a very decent offensive game tonight.
With Dion Waiters back, Cleveland's offense gains more amplitude on their outside shooting. The Cavaliers offense is similar to the Rockets offense, as they both use a lot pick and rolls and transition plays. Toronto is a decent team on pick and rolls defense and even though they have been struggling on transition defense this season, now that the team is committing a low number of turnovers and with Ed Davis replacing Andrea Bargnani on the lineup, the Raptors gained more mobility on their defense and they should be able to limit the damage Cleveland can do on transitions. Toronto has been very weak on post up defense, but not only
Cleveland is #30 on post up offense, as they have just 2.5% of volume on this kind of plays.
Cleveland is coming from a very competitive game at NY against the Knicks, where the NY team based their game almost exclusively on the perimeter shooting and ignored the fact that the Cavs have a very poor interior defense, something that Toronto will explore in here. I expect a super tight game tonight and therefore, I'll be taking the Raptors plus the points in here. I expect this game to be a relatively high scoring game due to Toronto's improved offense under Jose Calderon and Cleveland's pick and rolls that should also give them a decent offensive game, therefore I'll be also taking the Over in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 503/504 Over 189 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 503 Toronto Raptors (+5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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