{"id":321034,"date":"2026-04-19T06:40:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T01:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=321034"},"modified":"2026-04-19T06:40:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T01:10:31","slug":"raptors-fall-to-cavaliers-in-game-1-as-toronto-returns-to-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/04\/19\/raptors-fall-to-cavaliers-in-game-1-as-toronto-returns-to-playoffs\/","title":{"rendered":"Raptors fall to Cavaliers in Game 1 as Toronto returns to playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-article-socialshare=\"true\">\n<div id=\"article-fontSizer\" class=\"c-fontSizer\">\n<p>\n\t\t<button class=\"c-fontSizer__button c-fontSizer__button--decrease c-button c-button--details c-button--mini\" data-trackable=\"true\" data-trackaction=\"Font Sizer Decrease Font\" data-tooltip-title=\"Decrease text size\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"sr-only\">Descrease article font size<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<svg class=\"c-icon  c-fontSizer__icon\" focusable=\"false\">\n\t\t<use xlink:href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/wp-content\/themes\/shaw-globalnews\/assets\/dist\/icons\/out\/symbol\/svg\/sprite.symbol.svg?v=03zxzk4qx#font-decrease\"><\/use>\n\t<\/svg><br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/button>\n\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t<button class=\"c-fontSizer__button c-fontSizer__button--increase c-button c-button--details c-button--mini\" data-trackable=\"true\" data-trackaction=\"Font Sizer Increase Font\" data-tooltip-title=\"Increase text size\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"sr-only\">Increase article font size<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<svg class=\"c-icon  c-fontSizer__icon\" focusable=\"false\">\n\t\t<use xlink:href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/wp-content\/themes\/shaw-globalnews\/assets\/dist\/icons\/out\/symbol\/svg\/sprite.symbol.svg?v=03zxzk4qx#font-increase\"><\/use>\n\t<\/svg><br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/button>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p>The NBA playoffs officially got underway Saturday, however the Toronto Raptors didn\u2019t get the beginning they were hoping for.<\/p>\n<p>Toronto fell 126-113 to the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference first-round series, marking the team\u2019s first playoff appearance in 4 years.<\/p>\n<p>The playoffs follow the NBA\u2019s play-in tournament, which ran from Tuesday to Friday and determined the ultimate two seeds in each conference.<\/p>\n<p>Teams that lost within the play-in were eliminated, while winners advanced to the primary round.<\/p>\n<div class=\"c-inlineSignup\" data-newsletter-inline=\"\">\n<div class=\"c-inlineSignup__image\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/wp-content\/themes\/shaw-globalnews\/images\/skyline\/national.jpg\" alt=\"Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you'll never miss the day's top stories.\">\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<div class=\"c-inlineSignup__content\">\n<h2 class=\"c-inlineSignup__title\">Get each day National news<\/h2>\n<p>Get each day Canada news delivered to your inbox so you will never miss the day&#8217;s top stories.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>While the Raptors kept things close in the primary half Saturday, Cleveland pulled away within the second, constructing a 21-point lead heading into the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n<p>RJ Barrett and Scottie Barnes led Toronto\u2019s offence, with Barrett scoring 24 points \u2014 essentially the most ever by a Canadian in a Raptors playoff debut.<\/p>\n<div class=\"c-ad c-ad--bigbox l-article__ad c-ad--tallSticky\">\n<p>Story continues below commercial<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>For Cleveland, Donovan Mitchell scored 32 points, while Max Strus added 24 off the bench in a playoff profession high. James Harden had 22 points and 10 assists, and Evan Mobley chipped in with 17 points and 7 rebounds.<\/p>\n<div class=\"c-tabs\">\n<p>\n\t\t\t<button role=\"tab\" class=\"c-tabs__tab c-tabs__tab--active\" type=\"button\">More on Sports<\/button><br \/>\n\t\t\t<button role=\"tab\" class=\"c-tabs__tab\" type=\"button\">More videos<\/button>\n\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Outside Scotiabank Arena, fans gathered in Jurassic Park, with many braving rainy conditions to look at the sport.<\/p>\n<p>For a lot of, the playoff atmosphere brought back memories of 2019, when Toronto captured its first NBA championship.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the Game 1 loss, fans said they continue to be confident the team can bounce back within the best-of-seven series.<\/p>\n<p>Game 2 is about for Monday in Cleveland.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>\n\t\t&#038;copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Descrease article font size Increase article font size The NBA playoffs officially got underway Saturday, however the Toronto Raptors didn\u2019t get the beginning they were hoping for. Toronto fell 126-113 to the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference first-round series, marking the team\u2019s first playoff appearance in 4 years. The playoffs follow [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":321035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[2584,2328,585,2751,3491,548,7917],"class_list":["post-321034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-cavaliers","tag-fall","tag-game","tag-playoffs","tag-raptors","tag-returns","tag-toronto"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321034"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":321037,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321034\/revisions\/321037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}