Cavaliers dominate Raptors 128-110, take 2-0 lead

After earning a thrilling overtime win over the Raptors in Game 1 of the East semifinals, the Cavs won Game 2 in overwhelming fashion.

LeBron James had 43 points and 14 assists to lead the Cavaliers to a 128-110 dismantling of Toronto on Thursday night at the Air Canada Centre. The Cavs takes a 2-0 lead in their second-round series back home to Cleveland, where the Raptors have an all-time postseason record of 0-5 at Quicken Loans Arena.

James was masterful, making almost every shot imaginable. He also added eight rebounds, narrowly missing his second straight triple-double. He connected on 19-of-28 shooting. Its the fourth 40-point game he's had in these playoffs, and the 14 assists tie a career high.

In fact, it was so bad for Toronto in Game 2 that Twitter and the broadcast began calling their city “LeBronto.”

Raptors coach Dwane Casey on LeBron James hitting tough fadeaways in Cavaliers' Game 2 win. "That drains you mentally and physically...Hats off to him...He was having one of those nights."

Kevin Love played like an All-Star Thursday night. He scored 1o first quarter points and finished with 31 points and 11 rebounds. He shot 52.4 percent from the floor making 11-of-21 shots on the night. This was a great sight to see because Love came into the night having totaled 87 points over eight games this postseason.

Coach Tyronn Lue was impressed with Love's game tonight. He pointed out that Love's good offensive game opened things up for LeBron, commenting "When Kevin's shooting the ball, playing with pace like he was tonight, I thought he really moved fast, spread the ball in transition, hard cuts on our elbow curl...When he's playing fast and bigs guard him, this is how he can play."

The Cavs also benefited from the scoring of George Hill (13 points), J.R. Smith (15 points) and Jeff Green (14 points) as the Cavaliers posted their eight consecutive postseason victory over the Raptors.

The Raptors led for most of the first half, but never by more than nine points, and were clutching just a two-point advantage at halftime. Almost as if they'd been toying with Toronto, the Cavs hit another gear in the third quarter led by James and Love, whose 24 points in the quarter equaled Toronto's scoring. Cleveland took a 98-87 lead into the final frame, and one step closer to eliminating Toronto for the third straight postseason.

DeMar DeRozan scored 24 points and Kyle Lowry had 21 for the Raptors. Toronto won a team-record 59 games and finished as the top-seeded team in the Eastern Conference this season.

"This was a complete team effort," James said. "It's a big win for us."

The series now shifts to Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena for Game 3 on Saturday night, where Toronto has lost by an average margin of 24.2 points per game in their last five playoff contests.

"When you go home up 2-0 with the best player in the world, you like your chances."--Tyronn Lue stating his confidence going to Game 3.

COMING UP NEXT FOR THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS: The Cleveland Cavaliers return home with a commanding 2-0 series lead in the second-round best of seven playoff series. Game 3 is Saturday with tip-off at 8:30 pm at the Q.