Toronto Topples Cleveland, 110-99 for 8th Straight Win; Holds on to 2nd in the East

Toronto Raptors held Cleveland Cavaliers without a basket in the last four and a half minutes to turn a close game to a pulling away victory, 110-99 for their eighth consecutive win today.

Evan Mobley hit a triple to make it, 99-103 with 4:34 left in the game. But that proved to be the Cavaliers last points as the Raptors' defenses forced them to miss their shots, including triple attempts from Donovan Mitchell, Mobley and Lonzo Ball. On the other hand, Toronto was able to put up seven more points including a triple by Brandon Ingram to pull off the win.

Cleveland was without regular center Jarett Allen forcing Mobley to play the slot against Toronto's big men led by the 7-0 Jokob Poetl. The Cavaliers also continued to miss the services of starters Darius Garland and Max Struss who could have helped in producing points when they were needed the most.

Toronto was without forward JR Barett who was out on knee injury.

Unlike their previous wins where the Raptors relied on a committee of double digits scorers, this time, they needed just four main points producers to pull off the victory at home. However, Toronto got a huge lift from Ingram's monster 37 points, six rebounds and two assists performance with support from Scottie Barnes' 18 points and 11 rebounds.

Toronto mauled Cleveland off the boards, 51-37 in rebounds with Poetl hauling down a night high 13 boards to go with seven points. 6-9 Georgian American center-power forward Sandro Mamukelashvili continued his fine showing with 12 points and 9 rebounds. Guard Immanuel Quickley Jr. had 11 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists while Jemal Shead added 9 points and 7 assists.

Cleveland also had four double digits scorers led by the usually high scoring Mitchell who just had 17 points. Small forward Jaylon Tyson backed him up with 15 points followed by Mobley and Nae Quin Tomlin with 14 points each.

The win allowed Toronto to keep its hold of the second place with a slate of 13-5 behind Detroit Pistons (15-2) I'm the Eastern Conference. The loss dropped the Cavaliers to fourth at 12-7 behind the Miami Heat (12-6).

The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.