How Lowry, Raptors stunned Cavs to even East final

As Kyle Lowry rained blows on the collective body of the Cleveland Cavaliers in Monday's Game 4 in the form of a series-high 35 points on 14-of-20 shooting, it was hard not to think of a famous scene involving another Philly-born protagonist.

"Rocky" may be 40 years old, but who can forget Apollo Creed's trainer famously telling the champion that the plucky underdog "doesn't know it's a damn show. He thinks it's a damn fight."

Tyronn Lue, unlike Creed's trainer, surely didn't tell his team to "finish the bum" so the Cavs could go home, but given Cleveland's level of dominance through the first two games, few could have blamed him if he had.

For the majority of the Eastern Conference finals' first 96 minutes, the Cavs toyed with Lowry's Toronto Raptors like a championship prize fighter who steps in the ring with a pretender everyone knows is in over their head.

While the flat-footed Raptors remained glued to the perimeter in order to minimize the type of havoc Cleveland's shooting wreaked in the first two rounds, the Cavs enjoyed a parade to the basket in Games 1 and 2, en route to two victories by a combined 50 points.

When the series shifted to Toronto, the Raptors decided to seal off the paint, as they'd done effectively all season, and take their chances with the Cavs' shooters going cold.

It worked, as other than an unconscious stretch spanning most of the third and half of the fourth quarter in Game 4, when Cleveland knocked down eight of nine 3-point attempts, the Cavs went 19-of-73 from beyond the arc at Air Canada Centre.

Plenty of those bricked threes were open looks beautifully formulated by the Cavs' potent offense, but Raptors coach Dwane Casey noted that many of Cleveland's buckets during their second-half surge in Game 4 were admirably contested.

"I thought we were all over Channing Frye," Casey said of the floor-spacing big man who connected on three triples in a 62-second span early in the fourth. "I thought we were as close as you can get without fouling him.

"I don't know what else we can do, except get in their uniform with them and try to stop them that way," Casey added. "They made some tough shots. That's what they do. Kyrie Irving is a tough-shot maker. And then you got one of the best passers in the world in LeBron James."

The defensive effort Casey referenced was rewarded down the stretch, as after scoring on an unfathomable 14 straight possessions to unnerve the predictably raucous ACC crowd, the Cavs finished the game by scoring on only one of their final eight.

While the Raptors' more conservative defense tightened at home, and Bismack Biyombo dominated the boards in Games 3 and 4, the team's top-five offense also looked more like itself, with Toronto's two All-Stars leading the charge.

DeMar DeRozan, a likely UFA for whom the playoffs have been a referendum on his decision-making and overall game, proved again that while not always aesthetically pleasing or efficient, his ability to create and score in one-on-one situations can be a lifesaver come crunch time.

The Raptors went scoreless on four straight possessions late in the third and early in the fourth, and they appeared out of sorts as the Cavs trapped their ball handlers. Then DeRozan checked back into the game at the 10:15 mark and proceeded to score 12 fourth-quarter points on seven possessions, with only one of his five field goals coming by way of an assist.

"We were solid down the stretch," DeRozan said following the win. "Understanding that they scored, we had to come down and get a bucket."

Of course, as has been the story throughout the Raptors' climb towards contention over the last three years, at the center of it all was Lowry.

In addition to his 35 points on 70 percent shooting, Lowry finished with five assists, five rebounds, and three steals, and was perhaps the best player on the court on a night when "King James" turned in a great performance himself.

Lowry's banged up Raptors flew home weary, still without their starting center, and down 2-0 to a healthy Cavs team that had won 17 straight playoff games versus Eastern Conference opponents. Even the most optimistic Raptors fan was simply hoping for a good show in what was expected to be Toronto's final homestand of the season.

The Raptors leave home, with Jonas Valanciunas now available and Kevin Love banged up, in a best-of-three series for the right to go to the NBA Finals.

They didn't know this was supposed to be a show. They showed up for a fight.