The Cleveland Cavaliers continue their home stand as they will play host to the visiting Toronto Raptors.
Perhaps the Cleveland Cavaliers can harness some of their momentum from their late-game rally in their loss on Friday and use it on Sunday night when they host the Toronto Raptors. This will be the first of three meetings between the two teams. Toronto comes in losers of seven straight and nine of their last 10. Meanwhile the Cavs have lost five of their last six games.
Like Cleveland, Toronto is having a down year and are not living up to expectations. The only difference is that the Raptors by far have more talent on their roster and are closer to playoff contention than the Cavaliers are. There is a way for Toronto to figure things out and right the ship. Unfortunately this does not apply for Cleveland and their trajectory.
Toronto features a relatively balanced offensive attack with three players averaging at or near 20 points per game. Pascal Siakam leads with 20.1 while Fred VanVleet averages 19.8 and Noram Powell chips in 19.6 of his own. Kyle Lowry also makes an impact with his 17.6 points per game, but it is his 7.5 APG that makes a difference. VanVleet is second on the team with 6.6 assists per contest and Siakam averages 4.8. The Raptors offense is truly a shared load and a collaborative effort. It is not necessarily the performance of one, but the contributions of all for the Raptors.
It will not be easy for the Cavaliers on Sunday even though they are facing a struggling Raptors team. Cleveland is a clear step down talent wise which will make it difficult to compete from start to finish. The Raptors average and give up nearly the same amount of points per game (112.4-112.2) while the Cavs are outscored by over eight points per game (103.8-111.9). From this perspective the outlook does not look great for Cleveland by any means, but stranger things have happened including the Cavs recent win over Boston.
