Shawn Marion’s first experience as a Toronto Raptors wasn’t the warmest of welcomes – an ugly 93-76 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
But sitting at his locker after the game Wednesday, the new Raptor diagnosed Toronto’s woes as more in need of fine-tuning than a major overhaul.
“I think I saw some good things out there, some things we can work on, we all can help each other and there’s some great things out there that can happen,” Marion said, putting a positive spin on an otherwise dreary evening.
Zydrunas Ilgauskas scored 22 points, while LeBron James finished with 20 to lead the Cavaliers over Toronto.
Joey Graham topped Toronto with 15 points while Marion, who received a huge cheer when the starting lineup was announced, added 10 in his first game since he was acquired Friday in a trade with the Miami Heat.
“I think it is trying to integrate new players,” Raptors coach Jay Triano said of the loss. “We have had a couple of practices and they are trying to learn the plays on the fly, with guys on the floor directing them where to go and me yelling from the sideline where they are supposed to be.”
Jose Calderon finished with 13 points and Andrea Bargnani added 11 for the Raptors (21-35), who were missing leading scorer Chris Bosh for the fifth consecutive game.
The Raptors kept pace with the Eastern Conference-leading Cavs (41-11) for much of the first half before Cleveland broke the game open in the third quarter. James, relatively quiet to that point, poured in 10 points in the quarter and put the Cavs ahead by 17 points on two free throws near the end of the frame and Cleveland led 71-56 with a quarter left to play.
A three-pointer by Anthony Parker early in the fourth pulled Toronto within 11, but that was as close as the Raptors would come much to the dismay of the capacity crowd of 19,800 at the Air Canada Centre.
The game got heated in the final few minutes as Triano was ejected with five minutes left. Triano was arguing that Parker was fouled by James while shooting a jump shot. Triano, who had to be restrained by assistant coach Mike Evans, received a pair of technicals leading to an automatic ejection.
“It’s very frustrating when you know you’re getting fouled and all the calls are going their way,” Graham said. “We felt like we were playing eight guys out there.”
The game was already out of reach at that point. The Cavs would stretch their advantage to 22 points with 3:11 remaining en route to an easy win, sending the Raptors to their first loss in three outings.
“We are trying to teach guys on the fly and trying to teach them on the floor,” Triano said. “When you have that hesitancy, you lose rhythm and we had no rhythm at all.”
The Cavs shot 58 per cent on the night and held Toronto to 37 per cent. Cleveland outrebounded the Raptors 48-32.
With their chances of a post-season appearance dwindling, the Raptors acquired Marion and Marcus Banks in Friday’s trade that sent Jermaine O’Neal and Jamario Moon to Miami. Marion had the unenviable task of guarding James for most of the night, but fared well in his first appearance, playing a game-high 40 minutes.
“He does a lot of good things,” Parker said. “He defended LeBron well. . . offensively he got us a lot of second-chance points, he keeps the ball alive, he’s another guy that can go to the basket and slash, and I’m excited once we all get used to playing with each other, what he can turn into.”
Marion got the crowd going early when he threw an alley-oop to Parker, but there were several times when Marion was wide open and Jose Calderon didn’t see him.
“Me and Jose actually talked about it and he said, ‘I’ve got to get a feel for you,’ because I was cutting, I was wide open, but he couldn’t get a feel for it, he couldn’t see me,” Marion said.
“We counted on the sidelines three or four different plays where we missed him, where he made nice plays, we missed him,” Triano said. “That is just our guys not being familiar enough with what he is going to do when he makes a sharp move to the basket or when he conmes to set a screen and maybe slips it and goes to the hole.”
Bosh sat out the game with a sprained right knee. Triano couldn’t specify when the all-star forward and team’s leading scorer will return, only to say that he’s practising. But Bosh was sorely missed Wednesday. Seldom-used Nathan Jawai even saw some first-half minutes after Bargnani got into foul trouble.
“We get three minutes into this game and Andrea already has three fouls and we already start small,” Triano said. “So we’ve got to go smaller. It’s tough.”
Cleveland’s Ben Wallace missed the game after receiving 14 stitches to close a cut in his forearm. Wallace hurt his arm crashing through a car window while playing street football during the all-star break.
The Raptors led out of the gate, going up by nine points midway through the first quarter on a running bank shot by Marion. But the Cavs replied with a 14-2 run to go up by three points and took a 24-23 lead into the second.
The Cavaliers carried their momentum into the second quarter, taking a six-point lead on a jumper by Ilgauskas two minutes before halftime. Cleveland took a 47-41 lead into the locker-room at the break.
James led the way with 10 points in the third as the Cavs outscored the home team 24-15 in the quarter to lead by as much as 17 points. Cleveland went into the final 12 minutes leading 71-56.
NOTES: James fell over the ad board that runs along the baseline and into the front row of seats, while Cleveland’s Tarence Kinsey ended up in the second row of seats diving for a loose ball. . . Bosh skipped Sunday’s all-star game in Phoenix to rest his knee. . . The Raptors had lost the previous four straight against the Cavs before Wednesday. . . The Raptors are in New York on Friday then return home to host the Knicks on Sunday.
