The Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the Toronto Raptors on Thursday night in Game 2 of their Eastern Conference first round series. The Cavs were led by both of their All-Stars, LeBron James and Kevin Love, all night long.
Love finished with 31 points and 11 rebounds on 11-21 shooting, finally coming out of his slump to torch the Cavs’ opposition when they needed him most.
James finished the night with 43 points, 14 assists, and eight rebounds, nailing an insane assortment of turnaround fadeaway jumpshots in the second half that made Toronto’s Air Canada Centre deafeningly quiet as Cleveland went on to win.
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The turnaround fadeaway from all over the court, however, were not just a spur of the moment thing where James suddenly got hot. According to Love, LeBron said at Thursday morning’s shootaround that he was going to get mismatches and was going to be shooting turnarounds over both shoulders. That’s exactly what he did over and over again.
“I actually stopped him on the way back, when he went over his right shoulder then he went over his left shoulder. He said when he got the mismatch that he was going to do that. He actually called his shots this morning. That’s just one of the examples that I could use for how locked in he was throughout the entire shootaround. Just knowing what was at stake for us and getting a 2-0 lead is huge.”
The Cavs now lead 2-0 and return home to Cleveland to try and wins Games 3 and 4 at home, which would mean a sweep of the Eastern Conference’s best team.