Cavs still “scratching the surface” in win over Raptors; three takeaways

2. Shutting down DeRozan and Lowry early

While DeMar DeRozan still ended the game with a team-high 19 points, the Cavs did a good job of preventing him from going off early on. In the first half, he had just eight points on 2-of-4 shooting from the field.

Lowry scored just five points in the game on 2-of-11 shooting, connecting on just one 3-pointer.

Jose Calderon was a big part of stopping Lowry especially, and said after the game he just tried to stick to fundamentals on that end of the court.

“You’ve just got to try to be in front of him and the basket all the time,” he said. “He’s a great player. Just contest every shot, don’t try to get him fouls, and I was trying to get out of the way at some point. But I did whatever I could.”

Jose Calderon on guarding Kyle Lowry pic.twitter.com/FCkD4otHNw

— Ashley Bastock (@AshleyBastock42) April 4, 2018

Preventing either guy from going off early was without a doubt a best-case scenario for Cleveland defensively.

“Lowry is a tough guard,” Drew said. “Guys like him, you just try to make it tough for him. We know that they’re going to score, but we just try to make it tough for them, and that’s all we asked Jose to do. I thought he did a really good job. Our coverages were really good versus Kyle and DeRozan. DeRozan got away from us a few times, but for the most part, I thought we executed our coverages on both guys.”

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