Casey has Raptors relishing their role as underdogs vs. LeBron, Cavs

It’s safe to say the Toronto Raptors are more than comfortable being the underdog heading into in their first-ever Eastern Conference Final.

As head coach Dwane Casey put it the morning after his team’s Game 7 victory: “Nobody expected us to be here.”

But here the Raptors are, as they get set to face off against LeBron James and the East’s top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers, who are undefeated in the post-season and coming off nine days of rest ahead of Tuesday’s Game 1 at Quicken Loans Arena, while Toronto is coming off a second straight 7-game series after a convincing win over Miami at home on Sunday afternoon.

Next up for the Raptors is a team that’s “probably the best in the league right now,” if you ask Casey.

“Nobody’s gonna favour us going into this series,” Casey said on Monday, in a conference call. “Everybody’s, not disrespected us, but not expected us to do as much all year long.

“This series is not gonna be any different. I don’t know how Cleveland feels about us, but nobody’s gonna favour us to beat them in this series. The only people that are gonna believe in that [are] the people in our locker room and the guys on the floor. And so we gotta go in there together. And our backs will be against the wall Tuesday night, Thursday night in Cleveland.”

Don’t expect to see Jonas Valanciunas back in the lineup early in this series, either. Toronto’s starting center, their best player in the post-season until he got injured, has been out since Game 3 against Miami and he’s still getting daily treatments on his sprained right ankle. “Do you cancel him out for the entire series? I don’t know,” Casey said.

The coach applauded the play of Bismack Biyombo in his absence (Biyombo was 6-for-8 from the field on Sunday), and of Kyle Lowry (35 points, 9 assists) and DeMarre Carroll, but much of the focus of his praise was James and the Cavaliers.

“In my heart, I feel like LeBron James is the best player in the NBA right now. They didn’t ask me for my vote, so I didn’t give it to him. He does so many things for his team offensively and defensively,” Casey said. “Some of it, you can’t even quantify.”

Casey called James’ passing ability his “biggest weapon.”

“He puts it right on their numbers and you better have your hands ready, or it’ll go through your chest.”

The Raptors will not only be trying to defend James, but they’ll also be up against the best three-point shooting team in the post-season. The Cavs have hit a whopping 46.2 per cent of their three-point attempts through eight playoff games.

Casey said Atlanta tried to stop everything against the Cavaliers in the conference semi-finals, and ended up stopping nothing. “We have to pick our poison. They have been shooting the ball very, very well,” Casey said. “Our work is cut out for us to take out the three-zone.”

It may involve a personnel change on the floor, he added, to try to combat a team much deadlier from beyond the arc than Miami was. “Our philosophy has been all year to take away the paint first and then get out to the shooters…we may have to adjust that dramatically,” Casey said.

“Those are the things we’re preparing for right now to what we’re gonna try to take away and what we’re gonna live with. Some things you’re gonna have to live with and some things you gonna try to take away.”

So, if you ask Casey, LeBron is the best. And Cleveland is the best.

But this is not to say that the underdogs aren’t eyeing the upset.

“We’re humble, but we’re hungry,” Casey said. “We’re gonna go in with the confidence and feel like we should win. If we don’t, we shouldn’t be in this business.”