NBA Betting Preview: Toronto Raptors vs. Cleveland Cavaliers Game 2 Odds

The Cleveland Cavaliers remain undefeated in the 2016 NBA playoffs and continue to win in dominant fashion following a 115-84 blowout of the Toronto Raptors in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Tuesday.

The Cavaliers closed as 11-point home favorites in the series opener, and they are listed as 12.5-point betting favorites for Thursday’s Game 2 at sportsbooks monitored by Odds Shark.

The 31-point margin of victory in Game 1 was the largest in Cleveland’s postseason history and gave the team its ninth consecutive playoff win. The Cavs also improved to 6-3 against the spread and covered for the fourth time in five games after going 2-3 ATS versus the Detroit Pistons in the first round, according to the Odds Shark NBA Database.

Losing Game 1 is nothing new to the Raptors, who dropped the series opener against both the Indiana Pacers and Miami Heat at home in each of the previous two rounds before rebounding to win Game 2 both times.

The obvious difference here is that they do not have home-court advantage as the lower seed.

There were three monster mismatches individually in Game 1 that helped lead to the lopsided outcome, as Toronto’s Kyle Lowry, DeMarre Carroll and Patrick Patterson were outscored 65-18 by Cleveland’s Kyrie Irving, LeBron James and Kevin Love.

Lowry was the difference-maker against the Heat, scoring 71 points in the last two games on 23-of-47 shooting (48.9 percent), including 8-of-12 shooting from three-point range. He made only four of 14 shots for eight points in Game 1 versus the Cavs, going 0-of-7 from beyond the arc, and had scored a career-high 43 in the previous meeting.

The Raptors fell to 5-10 ATS in their 15 playoff games and will need to get a much better performance offensively and defensively from Lowry in Game 2. Irving scored a game-high 27 after totaling just 10 in the last meeting, which saw Lowry hit the game-winning shot in a 99-97 home victory back on February 26.

Toronto will likely not be able to win a high-scoring game at Quicken Loans Arena, so bettors should expect a slower pace in Game 2 of the playoff series, even though the over is 4-1-1 in the previous six meetings.