The Eastern Conference continues to look like it will again come down to a battle between the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers and the Toronto Raptors. The Raptors are anxious to prove that they can stand with the champs and will give it a shot when they host the Cavaliers on Monday.
Cleveland Cavaliers vs Toronto Raptors
When: 7:30 PM ET, Monday, December 5, 2016
Where: Air Canada Centre, Toronto, Ontario
| ROT | TEAM | PS | OU | Money Line |
| 705 | CLEVELAND | -2 (-110) | 216 (-110) | 100 -120 |
| 706 | TORONTO |
TV: 7:30 p.m. ET, FSN Ohio (Cleveland), TSN2 (Toronto)
PREDICTION: Raptors 103, Cavaliers 101
Cleveland enters Monday’s meeting on a three-game slide after beginning the three-game road trip with a 111-105 loss at Chicago on Friday on the heels of double-digit losses to Milwaukee and the Los Angeles Clippers. “You’ve got to play the game the right way,” Cavaliers star LeBron James told reporters. “You’ve got to battle every night like we ain’t won nothing. Last year is last year, and after ring night, it’s over with. Now it’s a new season and everybody is gunning for us every night, and we have to understand that. The honeymoon stage is over.” Toronto enters the meeting riding a six-game winning streak and coming off one of the more impressive wins of the season – a 128-84 triumph over the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday. The Raptors are winning by an average of 23 points over the last six games and will be trying to avenge a 121-117 loss at Cleveland on Nov. 15.
ABOUT THE CAVALIERS (13-5): Cleveland point guard Kyrie Irving, who averaged 24.4 points in the Cavaliers’ win over Toronto in the Eastern Conference finals last spring, downplayed the significance of the losing streak. “We don’t want to drop three in a row, but it’s happened,” Irving told reporters. “And now we figure out where we can get better, things that we need to correct and we move forward. Obviously, all of us are competitive players, we’re winners, and going forward we just got to be better. But there’s no need for controversy or any of that or us overthinking it. It’s just basketball.” Irving scored 20 or more points in each of the last nine games.
ABOUT THE RAPTORS (14-6): Saturday’s 44-point triumph marked a franchise record for margin of victory and featured eight different players scoring in double figures. “The ball is finding the right person,” coach Dwane Casey told reporters. “When you move the ball like that, it has energy inside it and I think it helps us on the other end when the ball is moving like that. I know it sounds simplistic but it is. We’re running the same offense, the same sets with some little wrinkles but mostly the ball is zinging around.” Toronto shot 57.6 percent from the field and went 13-of-24 from beyond the arc in the win.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Raptors PF Patrick Patterson is 21-of-38 from 3-point range in the last eight games.
2. Cleveland SG J.R. Smith is shooting 17.5 percent from the floor in the last five contests.
3. Toronto C Jonas Valanciunas was the only starter not to score in double figures on Saturday and totaled 14 points in his last three games.
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