Siakam, Anunoby, Barnes all eclipse 25 points as Raptors down Cavaliers
Toronto becomes 1st team from Eastern Conference to win in Cleveland this season
Pascal Siakam had 26 points and nine assists, O.G. Anunoby scored 26 points and the Toronto Raptors rolled to a 118-107 victory over the Cavaliers on Friday night, becoming the first East team to win in Cleveland this season.
"We just wanted to play with speed and be aggressive from the start, make them take tough shots and go out and gang rebound," Anunoby said. "If we play with energy and play with force, good things will happen."
Siakam, who scored a career-high 52 points Wednesday at New York, also had seven assists. Barnes grabbed 10 rebounds, Anunoby had nine and VanVleet added eight.
VanVleet's third 3 of the third quarter gave Toronto an 83-57 lead three minutes in, prompting Cleveland coach J.B. Bickerstaff to pull his entire starting lineup. Donovan Mitchell had four points at the time and finished with 12 on 4-of-16 shooting.
WATCH | Raptors deliver from beyond the arc:
"They weren't holding up their end of the bargain and they knew it," Bickerstaff said. "If you get complacent in the NBA, someone will kick you in the face — and Toronto is a team that can do it."
The Cavaliers fell to 16-3 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, including 11-1 against the East. Minnesota and Sacramento are the other teams to win in Cleveland.
Darius Garland had 17 points and eight assists, and Isaac Okoro scored 15 points for the Cavaliers, who are 4-1 on their season-high, six-game homestand. Cedi Osman and Kevin Love each scored 13 points off the bench.
The Raptors, who entered shooting an NBA-low 32.2 per cent on 3-pointers, made 12 of 21 in the first half and wound up shooting 51.4 per cent beyond the arc.
Toronto won for the second time in eight games and is 4-9 since beating the Cavaliers on Nov. 28.
"Pascal kept saying, `Don't get bored with the lead, keep getting stops,"' Barnes said. "So we came out in that third quarter really strong. Fred make some shots, Pascal made some shots. We just came out ready to play."
The Cavaliers announced a sellout crowd of 19,432, but the arena was less than two-thirds full as a result of sub-zero temperatures and poor road conditions in Northeast Ohio.
