The Cleveland Cavaliers are moving on, courtesy of a certain Fro.
Let’s check on tonight’s winners and losers.
WINNER – Jarrett **c**** Allen
I’m not sure if there was a more encouraging way for the Cavs to exorcise some demons and advance to the second round than Jarrett Allen going full-on beast mode in a Game 7.
Are the lights no longer too bright?
Allen was steady in the first half, immediately making his presence felt on both ends of the floor. But it wasn’t until the third quarter that all hell broke loose. Allen scored 14 points and hauled in 10 rebounds during that period, suddenly appearing anywhere a rebound was available.
This was the total package from Allen. Offensive rebounds and second-chance opportunities. Rejecting shots at the rim, then securing stops with his defensive rebounding. All the while, Allen rolled hard to the basket and kept applying pressure on Toronto’s undersized frontcourt to stave him off. They weren’t successful, and Allen made sure to take full advantage of it.
The Cavs fired off their fake-snow machine for a ‘Cavalanche’ in the fourth quarter. Moments before, Allen received loud MVP chants at the free-throw line. He finished with 22 points and 19 gigantic rebounds. To say it again, beast mode.
Allen has had some real stinkers in big spots. We’ve seen him look totally invisible in some of the most important games of the season. Tonight couldn’t have been any more different. You couldn’t watch a possession without noticing Allen on the floor. This was the best performance of his career in arguably his biggest game to date.
LOSER – First Half Turnovers
Every second you’re trailing in a Game 7 feels like you’re drowning. The Cavs drowned for nearly the entire first half, only getting a brief gasp of breath when the game was tied in the closing moments of the second quarter.
Turnovers were the primary reason for that struggle.
The Cavs turned it over 13 times in the first half. To his credit, only one of those came from James Harden. The rest of the Cavalier starters coughed it up 10 times. That’s the type of stuff that can end your season.
Cleveland knew this would be an area of concern against the Raptors. This is a team that thrived on generating steals and taking them in transition. Toronto flexed its strengths early in this game by scoring 14 points off turnovers in the first half.
WINNER – The Role Players
As mentioned, the first half of this game wasn’t pretty. The Cavs were flirting with an early deficit that could have closed the door on anything meaningful happening in the second half. There are a lot of reasons they avoided that outcome.
One of them is Merrill.
This wasn’t a super explosive game from Merrill. But his timely shot-making was a life jacket during an otherwise stormy section of the game. Toronto recovers and closes out to shooters as quickly as any defense in the NBA. Merrill is just faster.
Merrill also deserves credit for his defense. The tone of this game shifted when he and Max Strus began pressuring the ball full court. Neither one can be considered a defensive stopper, but hustle and heart go a long way in a win-or-go-home setting.
Next on the list are Max Strus and Jaylon Tyson. Each player came up in crucial moments throughout this game.
Strus did a little bit of everything, scoring 10 points, grabbing 8 rebounds, and dishing 5 assists. Oh, he had 2 steals and 1 block, as well. He might have struggled at various points in this series, but Max remains the type of player who you want on the floor in the biggest spots.
Then there’s Tyson, who is quickly proving that even in his sophomore season, no moment is too big.
Tyson changed the dynamic of this game by being able to float around the free-throw line and create from the middle of the floor. His guard-guard screening unlocked so much for the Cavs offense, and his game-tying shot near the end of the first half gave the Cavs their first gasp of breath all night.
“I thought Jaylon was huge,” said Kenny Atkinson. “It was amazing, James and Don just gave him the ball and let him go ahead — we needed that.”
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