Benching Jakob Poeltl makes sense for Raptors, but hasn’t helped close gap with Cavs

Anything bought from the links helps support *Fear the Sword*. You can find the awesome Cavs’ Starter jacket HERE. Homage’s entire Cavs collection can be found HERE. Despite not helping Toronto’s defense, going smaller did jump-start the offense. “[It] probably increases their transition offensive rate,” Atkinson said. “They’re going to double down on their speed.” The smaller lineups have, in fact, done so. Toronto is getting out in transition on 14.8% of their offensive possessions (93rd percentile) this series without Poeltl on the floor. That’s up from the 11.1% of possessions in transition (24th percentile) when he’s playing. This has all resulted in the offense being better in these smaller lineups. “It makes them space the floor a little more and makes them play faster,” Max Strus said. “It’s a new thing that we’re gonna have to figure out, and I think we did some things to prepare for it today.” The Cavs came into this series talking about needing to keep the Raptors from running in the open court. They’ve succeeded at that front in the first two games of the series, and will need to do so again if they want to steal a game in Toronto or potentially end the series there. Going smaller hasn’t produced considerably better results for Toronto. They’re just 0.5 points per 100 possessions better with Poeltl off the court, and have registered a -12.5 net rating. That isn’t going to get it done. Even though benching Poeltl may be the best move for the Raptors, it isn’t going to close the talent gap that we’ve seen through the first two games, at least not on its own. They need better performances from their best players — mainly Brandon Ingram — and hope that the Cavs’ stars cool off. Despite how stress-free the first two games have been, the Cavs aren’t taking anything for granted as the series shifts north of the border. “The series hasn’t even started yet until you go on the road,” Strus said. “So we got to come in with an aggressive mindset, just like we treated games one and two, and play our best basketball.”