The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Cavs-Raptors Prediction: PHYSICAL series, Harden & Mitchell eventually beat Ingram & Barnes

Episode Date: April 18, 2026

Jason reacts to the Cleveland Cavaliers matching up with the Toronto Raptors in the NBA playoffs and makes his prediction. He breaks down how Donovan Mitchell and James Harden will lead the Cavs offense and how they will fare against Brandon Ingram and Scottie Barnes. All lines presented by Hard Rock Bet.  #VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. Happy Friday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having an incredible end to your week. We've got another series preview today. This time we're hitting the Cavs and the Raptors. You guys know the drill before we started.

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signing a proposed notifications, hitting that subscribe button. That goes a long way towards helping us. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the season series between the calves and the raptors, these are the numbers for whatever they're worth. The Raptors are 3 and 0 this season, and they've absolutely dominated.

They have a plus 11.4 net rating. They've dominated Cleveland on the glass. They've dominated in transition. It hasn't been pretty. But I take little to nothing from this data just because all three of these games took place during the first six weeks of the season. The calves were utterly decimated by injuries. There was no Darius Garland.

Obviously, no James Hardin because that was before the trade. Jared Anlin only played in one game. Max Truce, obviously, was out of the lineup at that point. Here's how banged up the calves were. If you look up the highest total minutes played for the calves in games against the Raptors this season, Lonzo Ball and DeAndre Hunter are fourth and fifth on that list. So they just really aren't the same team as they were. Again, the last time they played was in late November.

So we're basically flying blind as we look at this particular series. If you look around, like we have a really good example from the Hawks, Knicks matchup from a couple weeks ago. That's like a really good informative matchup. the timber wolves in the nuggets have been kind of the same core for a while and have been beaten the hell out of each other for years, kind of have a better feel. But even then, their regular season games, they've had a lot of guys out of the lineup. Rockets, Lakers, obviously you have the Luca Donchich and Austin Reeves injury, but there were some good games to look at that at least gave you a feel for what the series would have looked like if both

teams were healthy. Could not be further from the truth for this particular matchup. Like, it's a lot of flying bind. We'll do our best to guess how these teams will guard each other and how they'll look to score, but this is one of the tougher ones based on what our regular season evidence is. The series prices. Now, again, all of our lines are provided by our partner Hard Rock bet.

Cleveland is a massive favor right now. Their mind is 600. Toronto is a plus 425 underdog. Those are the lines at the time of this recording. I think that line makes a lot of sense to me. Toronto has been one of the worst teams in the league this season against good teams. According to cleaning the glass,

against teams that are in the top 10 in point differential, the Raptors were just seven and 22 this year. That's the ninth worst record in the entire NBA. That's tied with the Dallas Mavericks. That's behind teams like Chicago, Milwaukee, and Golden State. And they didn't do themselves any favors in this conversation to end the season as they racked up toward, like right in that final month, double-digit losses, just in the final two weeks, actually,

just double-digit losses to the Knicks to the Celtics and in the Pistons or they just looked overmatched. Cleveland, even with all their injuries, had the seventh best win percentage against teams in the top 10 and point differential at 11 and 13. So there's a clear sign that like, just forget about anything involving this individual matchup.

Cleveland just looks like a much better team based on the data we got from this year. Then Toronto had injuries as well, but Cleveland was especially decimated and they just accomplished more over the course of this season. So let's start with Cleveland on offense. And I want to start actually with the way that the rabbit can flip this dynamic.

So again, massive underdog, right? How does Toronto change that dynamic, flip the script on their struggles in the regular season against good teams and find a way to compete in the series? Toronto's issues in big games have actually come down to the offensive end of the floor. Their defense has translated pretty well overall. They're big, they're switchy, they apply physical ball pressure, they rotate really well.

Scotty Barnes has been one of the best three or four defensive players that I've watched in this entire season overall, to me it's the physicality that I want to harp on to start here. Because if there's any shot for the Raptors have flipped the script on the lack of optimism surrounding them before the series, it's that there is some legitimacy to the fact

that Cleveland, both before and after the trade and in previous seasons, has shown some vulnerability to teams that can physically dominate them. If you can pressure their guards, if you can shove around their bigs, you can play them into lower quality threes. You can turn them over and get out in transition

and you can get active on the offensive glass. Donovan Mitchell looked a little banged up towards the tail end of the season. James Hardin is an older ball handler compared to some of the other guys that are going to have major responsibility this season. You know, we'll see, I have no idea whether or not Emmanuel quickly is going to be ready to go.

He's had this hamstring thing that's been an issue. That's something I want to kind of bring up when we talk about offense because that's something I'm concerned about. But let's say it's Jacoby Walter and R.J. Barrett. If those two guys can just get up into Mitchell and Hardin and just make them physically uncomfortable with ball pressure, if Scotty Barnes can just like kick Evan Mobley's ass just because he's bigger and stronger than him,

if Yaka Purdle can shove around Jared Allen on the offensive glass, like if they can do some of those things, that can go a long way towards giving Toronto a puncher's chance in this series. Today's show is brought to you by presenting sponsor Hard Rock Bet, the official sportsbook partner of the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic. The hardwood is heating up as the NBA, playoff push rolls on. And with Hard Rock Bet every night is a shot to build the same game

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She's an outsider to win the French for me. And she likes Clay. Listen, Lena Rubakina is arguably the best player in the world right now. And I actually can win on any surface because if she's serving, well, good luck. Consider this your court side seat to the French Open. Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. But I don't really see that happening outside of a game or two. Donovan Mitchell has a habit of kind of, we talked about this with Carter Rodriguez when he came on to talk Cavs a couple weeks ago.

Donovan Mitchell has a habit of looking a little iffy post-all-star break and then just being fine when he gets to the postseason. and he's been one of the most reliable playoff scoring guards in the NBA over the last few years. I think he'll be fine. James Hardin is a big, strong ball handler. He tends to do pretty well against ball pressure, especially from players that are smaller than him.

I talked about this right after the trade. As crazy as it sounds, I actually think James Hardin is a more reliable playoff player than have banged up Darius Garland by a pretty decent margin. Evan Mobley has shot the ball well and played pretty well in this matchup this season. And Jared Allen gives Hardin and Mitchell their play finisher when they're looking to attack Yaka Pertil in drop coverage.

The Cavs also, when they're healthy, have some of the most deadly spot-up shooters in the league. They have multiple guys that, like, you straight up cannot leave open. Max Truce, Sam Merrill, obviously Jalen Tyson as well. There are guys that you straight up cannot leave open. I know they haven't been as good as I thought they would be after the Hardin trade, but I still think they're a really well-built roster. And there are numbers that you can dig into. They only played Hardin Mitchell, Jared Allen, and Evan Mobley, that quartet. for about 200 possessions this year, it's about two games worth,

right around 100 minutes, right? They're plus 24 points per 100 possessions. So a lot of this stuff with Cleveland, like I think you can still be concerned about some of these issues, but overall, like when they're actually healthy, we haven't seen it very much, but they've been very dominant.

A lot of this could still come to fruition in a postseason run. And the real problem I have for the Raptors and their chances in the series comes down to their ability to score consistently. Toronto's a bottom 10, 3. shooting team. And specifically the Scotty Barnes, Yacquipurto front court,

that will allow the calves to keep Mowbly and Allen stacked in any sort of pick and roll coverage. That means if you want to bring Jared Allen to the level, Evan Mowgli can be under the rim. If you want to bring Evan Mowgli to the level, Jared Allen can be underneath the rim. They can stack in pick and roll with coverage, which is always when Cleveland's

been at their best defensively, because they don't really, the raptors don't really have the ability to space out to the corners. Not unless they have Sondra, Mamalalalalachalilia on the floor, which opens up some defensive issues for them, right? So, like, I think for the most part, the Cavs are going to be able to keep Mobley and Allen stacked and pick and roll. What I mean by that is just up at the level with strong low man help. And I think that's going to give them a really high

floor defensively in the series. All those Scotty Barnes and Brandon Ingram isos and post-ups, you're going to have one of those guys just sitting right behind them at the rim. And this is probably the biggest concern I have. One of my favorite parts of the Raptors offense this season has been the ability of Emmanuel quickly and Jamal shed to start the engine of the Raptors' offense. The Raptors offense actually, they move the ball really well. They have a lot of high level playmaking talent. They don't have shooting talent, but they playmaking talent. So they can get some really high quality looks when they break the defense down. But one of their ways to do that is their dribble penetration and Emmanuel quickly is dealing with the hamstring issue. And we'll see if he's

even available for game one, but let's say he is. Like that's the kind of injury that could have a significant impact on his ability to make hard driving moves towards the basket. I think in order for Toronto to win the series, there's going to have to be physical domination on both ends of the four. They're going to have to, once again, lots of ball pressure, lots of shove in Evan Mobley off of his spots, forcing turnovers that spark their transition attack, forcing bad threes. Again, Cleveland's three point shooting is very contingent on the quality of shots that they get. When that slips, they can go cold. That can spark the long rebounds that lead to those transition battles. Physical on offense, like Scotty Barnes has to just

straight up bully Evan Mobley. And if he's able to draw Jared Allen over and help, it's going to have to be Yacapurto cleaning things up on the back end. They're going to have to do some damage on the offensive class. Surgical midrange scoring from Ingram. He's going to have a lot of help behind him at the rim.

He's going to need to be able to hit shots over the top. And they're going to need a ton of dribble penetration from their guards. And it's just a narrow path. It's a narrow path that over and over again this season, the Raptors have been unable to thread when they've played the upper level competition in this league. And no, Cleveland is not a Boston, Detroit,

um, uh, Boston Detroit level talent, you know, in terms of when you're talking about the very, very best teams in the league. Um, the, uh, the Knicks as well. I'd, I'd a lump in there when I'm talking about the upper level teams that Toronto is struggled with over the tail end of the season. But Cleveland is pretty close to that level. Like, they're not far off of, that like Knicks Celtics level. And I put Cleveland kind of on the same tier as Detroit right now in terms of what I view them as an overall playoff team. So like I don't think this is the type of matchup that, uh, that Toronto is going to have a lot of success with. They've struggled consistently with this. Their success against Cleveland early in the season stemmed mostly from

injuries. So I think in in the half court in particular, it's just a really good matchup for Cleveland. So as long as Cleveland doesn't decompose under Toronto physicality, physical ball pressure, physical under the rim, physical post-ups and ISOs from guys like Scotty Barnes. As long as they hold up there, they should take care of business. I'm picking the calves in six.

All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow morning, Saturday morning, with our 1-8 series previews. I will see you guys. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers.

I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it.

We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it, but, you know, tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite.

Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to Dave. David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where SportsSlice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves.

Their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to SportsSlic on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slical Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the... the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on, a Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud. But how long can this alliance last? Tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me?

Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I-Heart podcast. Indeed human.