00:00let's break down some of these series time we start off with toronto and cleveland mentioned
00:04number four seed cleveland number five seed toronto toronto on the season 46 and 36 pretty
00:09good uh monster under team 50 and 32 under third best under team in the nba cleveland uh was another
00:18pretty good under team as well they were 52 and 30 straight up only though 33 and 49 that is
00:25the
00:25worst against the spread record in the nba yeah worse than new orleans worse than washington
00:32worse than brooklyn you name every dredge team in the nba and cleveland was worse uh so that's the
00:40bad news all right let's look at the you know toronto 46 wins this year only 30 last year so
00:45a 16 game improvement but here's the achilles heel i mentioned it earlier they're only 5 and 22
00:52this season against the top six teams in the western conference and the top four teams in
00:58the eastern conference so the the best 10 teams in the nba this team was only 5 and 22 uh
01:04they were
01:0541 and 14 against everybody else but again the caveat is they were 3 and 0 against cleveland
01:11um so depending on how you want to view things uh toronto 32 and 2 this year when they hold
01:17opponents to under 109 points right um but uh cleveland scored that in all but 14 games
01:23but three of the games they didn't in the game they lost to toronto so um but you got a
01:29healthy
01:29cleveland team james harden donovan mitchell mobley jared allen they've yet to play as a group against
01:35toronto so you can throw those three games out the window in fact they've only played 92 minutes
01:40together obviously picking up hard trade deadline um since they picked up harden cleveland 19 and 7
01:47that's the fifth best record in the nba i think cleveland wins long story short but i do think as
01:52we talked about i think toronto gives them a scare they're getting eight eight and a half today that's
01:57a pretty good number opening round game teams haven't played in a little while i i like the under
02:02because of those under trends and i also like toronto to at least cover the spread right i i would
02:08say the
02:08same thing you know when i'm looking at it and you know a lot of people would say at this
02:11time of the
02:11season uh or this time of the year you know styles make fights you know cleveland they were 15th in
02:16pace and toronto sitting at 21st uh cleveland 16th in defensive efficiency and toronto was all the way
02:22up at sixth so you know to me this seems that toronto they want to slow the game down right
02:27they
02:27want to keep it in inside the arms and really keep the calves within arms reach because if the calves
02:33get out and score i'm not sure the raptors have enough to really turn this into a barn burner and
02:38outscore them in multiple games they can do it once sure if cleveland has an off night so i'm
02:43looking at the series from the five and a half total games it's minus 110 on both sides i think
02:48toronto they can keep it close i again i think they lose the series four to two which means it
02:52goes over five and a half but i i think cleveland will come away because they are just a more
02:57well
02:58rounded more experienced playoff team so i'm looking at unders in this series give me the points
03:02with the raptors at eight and a half to start this and i really do like over five and a
03:06half and again
03:06if we get to a spot it leaves you a chance to hedge out if need be all right wouldn't
03:12put a lot of
03:12credence into this because they haven't played in a couple of years but the cleveland has defeated
03:16toronto 10 straight in the postseason including seven by double digits here's the problem i have
03:22with cleveland not necessarily so much this series tom but it's the same old bugaboo i mean you know
03:27what's worse than a pile of you know what two piles of you know what uh you got donovan mitchell
03:32you know he actually averages over 28 points a game in the postseason that's the seventh highest
03:37ever seventh right but what's his label he looks in the big time james harden averages over 22 points
03:45you know pretty good uh but what's his label can't win the big game so now we got two guys
03:51on the same
03:52team that had the same label can't win and not necessarily the postseason but can't win that big
03:57game that does two negatives equal positive in your eyes with cleveland i was gonna say maybe
04:02they just cancel each other out right maybe like oh they both can't be bad one of them will be
04:07fine
04:08the other one may be average one of them will be good uh but really comes down to it i
04:12think cleveland
04:12has the pieces ultimately and when it comes to the bench i like what they're gonna be bringing off the
04:17bench ultimately better than what we get from the raptors so again i think the raptors make this a
04:22competitive series they're just not as good and not as well-rounded nor have as much playoff experience
04:27compared to cleveland so you know will we talk about the james harden narratives as the playoffs go on
04:32sure but i think they get past this first round
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