Raptors at Cavaliers
LeBron James is putting on a display this postseason that will be talked about for ages, and he has a chance to take his run another round further when he leads the Cleveland Cavaliers into a potential Game 4 clincher at home against the Toronto Raptors on Monday. After scoring 43 points on Thursday to help the Cavaliers gain a 2-0 series lead on the road, James knocked down a running buzzer-beater to give his team a 105-103 victory in Game 3 on Saturday.
The game-winner capped a 38-point effort for the superstar, who is averaging 34.8 points on 54.7 percent shooting to go along with 9.5 rebounds and 8.8 assists during the playoffs. "I've been doing that since I was like six, seven, eight years old," James told reporters of his latest clutch moment. "Maybe even before that. There's a picture floating around of me beside a Little Tikes hoop with a saggy Pamper on and I was doing it back then and all the way up until now, at 33." The top-seeded Raptors are on the verge of being swept out of the playoffs for the second straight season by Cleveland. "Our goal in the timeout was to trap him and make someone else beat us," Toronto coach Dwane Casey told reporters of a play that will haunt him. "He split the trap and went 100 miles an hour down the floor and lost them. We just didn't execute. It was probably my fault that I didn't make it clear that we wanted to trap him and get the ball out of his hands. We had it started in the backcourt, and for whatever reason, we let him out of the trap."
TV: 8:30 p.m. ET, TNT
ABOUT THE RAPTORS: Teams that fall behind 3-0 in the playoffs are 0-129 in NBA history, giving Toronto virtually insurmountable odds to come out on top against a team it cannot seem to solve. The task is made all the more difficult when leading scorer DeMar DeRozan struggles the way he did in Game 3, producing eight points - more than 15 below his average this postseason - on 3-of-12 shooting, leading to a benching during a critical portion of the fourth quarter. "It's extremely hard, extremely hard," DeRozan told reporters of sitting on the sidelines while his teammates made a late push. "I just want to be out there helping my team, way more than anything. It definitely sucks to be watching ... we've got to give credit to those guys. We fought hard and gave ourselves a chance to win."
ABOUT THE CAVALIERS: James will finish his career with a hefty collection of buzzer-beaters, but the sheer difficulty of Saturday's one-handed bank shot will make this one stand out. "In the moment, that's a tough shot, but I've watched him shoot that shot countless times in shootaround and practice, just messing around, shooting off the wrong leg," guard Kyle Korver told the media. "I'm like, 'When would you shoot a shot like that?' Apparently to win a playoff game. Amazing shot." Even more important for Cleveland's long-term outlook this spring was the second straight solid game for big man Kevin Love, who had 21 points on 7-of-14 shooting and 16 rebounds.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Korver, SF Jeff Green and SG J.R. Smith are a combined 22-for-40 from 3-point range in the series.
2. Raptors PG Kyle Lowry is averaging 22 points on 62.9 percent shooting in the series.
3. If the Raptors win they will host Game 5 on Wednesday.