Toronto Raptors coach Dwane Casey isn’t giving the Cleveland Cavaliers too much credit for stealing homecourt in their second-round playoff series.
After falling to the Cavs in overtime by the final of 113-112 in Tuesday’s Game 1, Casey said that he thought the Raptors were the better team.
'I think we're the better team. We just didn't make shots down the stretch."
Raptors HC Dwane Casey after the Game 1 loss.#GameTime pic.twitter.com/8DJXMwYiiJ
— NBA TV (@NBATV) May 2, 2018
“A lot of things we did to ourselves,” said Casey. “Nothing special, nothing that we didn’t expect, some uncharacteristic things that we missed, some shots we missed, I thought that was the difference in the game.
“I think we’re a better team,” he added. “We just didn’t make the shots down the stretch. I know it sounds simplistic, but we had our open looks, had our opportunities that we didn’t cash in on. And some other things we can clean up defensively, that we can do a better job with also.”
Indeed, Toronto led for the entire game until the end of the fourth (including a surreal sequence where they missed three straight tip-ins on their final possession) and didn’t score a single point in the last minute or so of overtime.
Casey and the Raptors had the best record in the Eastern Conference during the regular season. But now that they are down 0-1 to a familiar foe, they might benefit from going back to the mentality that they had in Round 1.
