Last night the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Houston Rockets had chances of taking important 2-0 leads of their respective series. The Cavs used a balanced attack to handily beat the Raptors while the Rockets played opposite of their Game 1 performance.
With the series now shifting back to Toronto, the Raptors need to win Game 3 to have a shot at getting back into the series. Because of winning Game 1 in San Antonio, the Rockets now go back home and have a chance at taking control of this series.
Game 2: Toronto Raptors @ Cleveland Cavaliers (Cavs lead series, 2-0)
LeBron James finished with a game-high 39 points to help lead the Cavs to a 125-103 Game 2 victory over the Raptors. Three other Cavs players finished in double-figures, including Kyrie Irving’s 22 points. Cleveland was once again not challenged in this game as James made things look easy on the court.
Jonas Valanciunas finished with a team-high 23 points for the Raptors and Kyle Lowry chipped in with 20 points of his own. The biggest surprise was that DeMar DeRozan only finished with five points on 2-of-11 shooting. He simply cannot have these type of games if they want to make things competitive against the Cavs. Toronto has a shot of getting things back on track with Games 3 and 4 at home.
Game 2: Houston Rockets @ San Antonio Spurs (Series tied, 1-1)
After a miserable Game 1 performance, the Spurs rolled to a 121-96 victory last night to tie their series with the Rockets. Kawhi Leonard did it all as he scored 34 points, grabbed seven rebounds, and dished out eight assists.
Unfortunately for the Spurs they didn’t come out of this game unscathed as Tony Parker went down with a ruptured quadriceps tendon in the fourth quarter and will miss the rest of the playoffs. San Antonio will have to make some major adjustments without their second-leading scorer in these playoffs.
Houston was lead by Ryan Anderson who finished with 18 points. MVP candidate James Harden only scored 13 points on 3-of-17 shooting while being shadowed by Leonard most of the night. The Rockets got what the wanted while in San Antonio, which was a split and now have a golden opportunity, now that Parker might be done for the Spurs, to be in the driver’s seat of the series.