Dream land gets nearer as Cleveland rolls past Toronto to take 3-2 series lead

Frank Gunn/AP
By Julian Reyes

CLEVELAND–Feel at home.

The Cleveland Cavaliers rediscovered its style and dominant self, after dropping two straight games in Toronto, as it returned home and scored a 116-78 total demolition of the Toronto Raptors and moved one win away from returning to the NBA Finals for second straight year at Quicken Loans Arena, Thursday (PH time).

Right from the start until the final buzzer, the Cavaliers completely dominated in every facet of the game to take a 3-2 lead against the Raptors who found its key players struggled anew.

After losing his shooting touch in the past two games, Kevin Love bounced back big and top scored Cleveland with 25 points on 8-of-10 shooting and 3-of-4 from the 3-point line.

LeBron James had another all-around game as he finished with 23 points, six rebounds, six assists and two steals while Kyrie Irving also recorded 23 points, along with three boards, three dimes and three steals.

The Cavaliers' ‘Big 3’ outscored the entire Toronto squad until the end of the third quarter where Cleveland blew the Raptors out with a commanding 40-point lead, 100-60. Both teams starting lineup did not play the entire fourth quarter.

Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan, who led the Raptors in its two successive wins to tie the series at 2-2 and average 26 points per game in the series, found himself nowhere to be found as he registered only 14 points on 2-of-8 shooting.

Kyle Lowry also had a bad game as he only scored 13 points on 5-of-12 shooting and committed five turnovers.

Bismack Biyombo, who has been a problem for the Cavaliers inside the paint, was limited to only four rebounds and a single block. He had a combined 40 rebounds in the previous two games.

Fortunately for the Toronto players, they will return to Air Canada Centre on Saturday (PH time) for the Game 6 and look to push the series into a deciding Game 7 which will be their 21st game in the playoffs this year if it happens. The Raptors remain undefeated against the Cavaliers when they played home.

Cleveland went off to a hot start as it led Toronto after the first frame, 37-19, with Love connecting all of his four shot attempts and finished the quarter with 12.

Things got terribly worse for Toronto before the break as it let the Cavaliers lead them by 31, 65-34, the largest in conference finals history.

The Cavaliers continued its hot-shooting as it buried the Raptors more heading into the fourth quarter with Love, James and Irving taking over the offense of Cleveland.

It was an all-Cavaliers show in the entire 48 minutes as they dictated every facet of the game.

Cleveland shot a dazzling 57.1 percent from the field and 47.6 percent from beyond the arc as the Raptors only had 39.1 percent from the field and 17.6 percent from the 3-point line.

The Cavaliers also outrebounded Toronto by a huge margin, 48-27, and limit the latter to only 15 after the third.

Cleveland also dished more assists compared to Raptors, 23-19, committed fewer mistakes, 16-18, blocked more shots, 6-3, and tallied more steals, 11-9.

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