LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavs ripped the heart out of the city of Toronto, aka "LeBronto," once again last night.
LeBron poured in a game-high 43 points and tied his playoff career-high with 14 assists as the Cavs secured a 128-110 victory over the Raptors, giving them a 2-0 lead as the series shifts to Cleveland for Games 3 & 4. According to ESPN's Brian Windhorst, LeBron used nearly every minute of his down time leading up to Game 2 "doing almost nonstop recovery methods during the time he was awake."
After the game, Kevin Love said the Cavs "could just sense" that LeBron was going to have an epic performance last night.
"This morning, you could just sense it," said Kevin Love, via Windhorst. "He knew what was at stake. He knew us getting another one at their place was going to be huge for us, and he came out and played that way from the jump tonight. Like I said, you could just sense that he was going to have a special night."
"I gave [teammates] a little inside of my mind," James said. "And I showed 'em tonight as well."
According to ESPN, there have been 26 teams to win the first two games on the road in a seven-game series in NBA history, and 22 of them have gone on to win the series. Barring an epic collapse, it looks like LeBron and the Cavs will be the 23rd team to win such a series.
"I pretty much know the scouting report on me is going to be to dare me to shoot jump shots and keep me out of the paint, not allow me to go to the free throw line," James said. "Over the course of my career, I just try to put a lot of work into other facets of my game to try to neutralize their game plan."
The Cavs have now won eight consecutive playoff games against the Raptors dating to 2016, including five straight at the Air Canada Centre, which has led to the renaming of Toronto as "LeBronto."
Game 3 is scheduled to tipoff at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland tomorrow night at 8:30pm ET, airing on ABC.
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