CLEVELAND _ Cavaliers guard George Hill cracked a smile after a layup in the second half on Monday night as Montell Jordan's song "This Is How We Do It" blared over the Quicken Loans Arena loudspeakers.
Welcome to "SweepLand," Mr. Hill.
Hill and a cast of other fourth-seeded Cavs _ including LeBron James, of course _ dispatched the No. 1 seed Toronto Raptors 128-93 in Game 4 of the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal series. The victory gave the Cavs a four-game sweep over Toronto for the second consecutive year, and also allowed the Cavs to eliminate the Raptors from the playoffs for the third season in a row.
The Cavs, dressed in black uniforms with wine letters and numbers and gold trim, continued their recent domination of the Raptors with sharp-shooting in the paint and from beyond the 3-point arc before a sellout crowd of 20,562.
"We were focused in this series," Hill said in a postgame interview on the court. "We moved the ball offensively and we took care of business defensively."
The Cavs will meet the Boston Celtics or the Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference finals. The Celtics lead the 76ers 3-1 after the Sixers' 103-92 win on Monday night.
James led the Cavs on Monday with 29 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds in 38 minutes. Kevin Love (23 points, six rebounds), Kyle Korver (16 points), J.R. Smith (15 points) and George Hill (12 points) also reached double figures for the Cavs.
Jonas Valanciunas paced the Raptors with 18 points and five rebounds in 16 minutes, and Kyle Lowry had five points and 10 assists. DeMar DeRozan (13), C.J. Miles (13), Serge Ibaka (12) and Delon Wright (10) also had double-digit points.
James made a fadeway jumper from the baseline near the Raptors bench with 1:01 to go in the third quarter to make it 97-70, and Jordan Clarkson added a layup and free throw to make it 100-72 with 23.6 seconds left. DeRozan committed the foul on the Clarkson layup and, after an official review, was ejected courtesy of a flagrant-2 ruling.
The Cavs kept on going in the fourth quarter and expanded their advantage to 30 points (110-80) when James made a 3-pointer at 7:54. The Akron native subbed out of the game with 7:38 to go to chants of "M-V-P, M-V-P, M-V-P."
The Cavs maintained the large lead in the fourth quarter with the likes of Clarkson, Jeff Green, Tristan Thompson, Cedi Osman, Larry Nance Jr., Ante Zizic and Jose Calderon logging minutes. Nance had three dunks and a layup in the final couple of moments.
Both teams got off to blistering starts offensively in the first quarter, and the Cavs led 15-12 on a Korver 3-pointer. Hill was aggressive in the first couple of moments with two right-handed dunks and a layup, and Smith buried two jumpers.
The Cavs extended the lead with scoring from starters Hill, Smith, Love, Korver and James. Smith swished a 3-pointer at 3:00 to make it 26-17 and another 3 at 2:01 to make it 29-19. The Cavs led 30-26 at the end of the first quarter as the Raptors put together a 7-1 run that included a Valanciunas dunk, a Fred VanVleet bucket and a DeRozan dunk.
The Raptors kept charging and put together an 8-0 run to lead 38-36 with 8:00 left in the second quarter. Valanciunas spearheaded the spurt with two layups and a jumper.
The Cavs then posted a 27-9 run to take a 63-47 lead into halftime. The surge included scoring from James, Thompson, Korver, Love, Hill and Smith. Korver made two 3-pointers and Smith swished another.
Smith led all scorers at the break with 15 points on 6-for-6 shooting from the field, including 3-for-3 from deep. The Cavs had four players in double figures at halftime: Smith (15 points), Korver (13), Love (11) and James (10). On the other end, the Raptors were led by DeRozan's nine points.
The Cavs separated themselves even further from the Raptors in the third quarter with James driving to the basket for layups and Love swishing 3s. Love connected from long range at 6:09 to make it 80-59 and at 5:11 to make it 85-61.
The Raptors fell further behind in the fourth quarter.
James made 12 of 19 field goals and 5 of 8 free throws. In addition to Smith's 3-for-3 from 3-point range, the Cavs received solid 3-point shooting from Korver (4 of 5), Love (2 of 4) and Green (2 of 6).
The Cavs shot 59.5 percent from the field and 46.2 percent from 3-point range. The Raptors countered with 45.6 percent shooing from the field and 26.7 percent shooting from 3.
