Scottie Barnes and RJ Barrett each scored 33 points Thursday night and the Toronto Raptors defeated the visiting Cleveland Cavaliers 126-104 in Game 3 of their first-round playoff series.
Reserve Jamison Battle scored all of his 14 points in the fourth quarter to ignite a Toronto surge that reduced Cleveland’s series lead to 2-1.
Game 4 of the best-of-seven set is scheduled for Sunday in Toronto.
Barnes added 11 assists and five rebounds for the Raptors.
“He did everything for us tonight,” Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said.
Raptors rookie Collin Murray-Boyles had 22 points and eight rebounds, while Brandon Ingram scored 12 points.
Rajakovic said of Murray-Boyles, “He’s a warrior, to be honest with you. … I thought he had a high-level performance tonight, and I contribute that to the power of his will.”
James Harden scored 18 points for the Cavaliers, who made 22 turnovers in a careless performance.
Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said of the team’s giveaways, “I didn’t think our spacing was great. … (The Raptors were) crowding the paint on our drives. … They decided they really want to pack it, and I felt like we were trying to thread the needle too much trying to pass it in there.”
Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell was held to 15 points, and Max Strus and Evan Mobley also scored 15 each. Jaylon Tyson put up 13 points, and Jarrett Allen contributed 12.
Rajakovic said of holding down Harden and Mitchell, “It was the discipline of the whole team. We tried to make it hard for them. Those guys are so elite.”
Toronto took a two-point lead into the fourth quarter. The game was tied for the 13th time when Mobley converted to free throws with 9:53 left. The Raptors went on a 13-4 run to grab a nine-point lead on Battle’s third 3-pointer of the quarter with 7:25 to go.
The lead reached 11 on Barrett’s trey with 5:41 to play. Battle hit another 3-pointer to bump the margin to 17 with 3:45 left.
Mitchell said, “It’s our aggressiveness, our force, I don’t think was there tonight as a whole. Give credit where credit’s due. We knew it was going to be a tough game. No team wants to go down 3-0. We were right there for the majority of the game, and then Battle kind of got away in the fourth. So just things we can control. I’ll give them credit. They protected home court.”
The Raptors, who never had a lead in Game 2, were up 31-25 after one quarter of Game 3 as they took advantage of Cleveland’s nine turnovers.
The lead reached 10 in the first minute of the second quarter. Tyson’s corner trey with 7:58 to play capped a 9-0 Cleveland run that trimmed the margin to one, and Strus drained a 3-pointer to give Cleveland a two-point lead with 52.2 seconds left. Murray-Boyles finished the first-half scoring with a dunk following a Barnes steal to tie the game at 54.
Toronto led by seven after Barnes made two free throws with 8:12 left in the third quarter. Harden immediately answered with six straight points. Strus nailed a 3-pointer to give Cleveland a one-point lead with 3:09 left, but the Raptors regained the advantage on Murray-Boyles’ dunk. Barnes swished a 15-footer at the end of the third quarter to give Toronto an 83-81 edge.
–Field Level Media
