Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers fell 126-104 to the Toronto Raptors in Game 3 of the NBA Playoffs on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
The Cavaliers still lead the series 2-1, but the league’s seventh-leading scorer struggled in the loss.<\/p>\n
Mitchell finished with 15 points on 44 percent shooting, going 1-of-7 from beyond the arc. He added five rebounds and three assists with three turnovers.<\/p>\n
No single player stood out for the Cavaliers, as six players scored in double figures but it wasn’t enough.<\/p>\n
James Harden led the way with 18 points, four rebounds and four assists, though he committed eight turnovers. Max Strus added 15 points off the bench.<\/p>\n
The Cavaliers shot just 31 percent from beyond the arc compared to a red-hot Toronto Raptors team that connected on 61 percent. Turnovers proved costly, as Cleveland committed 22, leading to 23 points for Toronto.<\/p>\n
Toronto’s RJ Barrett and Scottie Barnes dominated, dropping 33 points a piece, Barnes adding 11 assists for a double-double. Collin Murray-Boyles added an impressive 22 points off the bench in the win.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Raptors took a 31-25 lead after the first quarter before the Cavaliers battled back to tie it 54-54 at halftime. Harden and Mitchell each entered the break with seven points.<\/p>\n
Scottie Barnes erupted for 31 points through three quarters, helping Toronto take a two-point lead into the fourth.<\/p>\n
The Raptors then used a late 16-0 run in the final period to seal the win as both teams emptied their benches.<\/p>\n
The winner of the Raptors-Cavaliers series will advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals to face either the top-seeded Detroit Pistons or the No. 9 Orlando Magic, with that series tied 1-1.<\/p>\n
Game 4 between Cleveland and Toronto is set for Sunday in Toronto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers fell 126-104 to the Toronto Raptors in Game 3 of the NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":717104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,305,193,3846,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-717103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavaliers","10":"tag-cleveland","11":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","12":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116459581324899953","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/717104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}