There was a welcome sight on the court for the Raptors ahead of Saturday’s third game against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Injured centre Jonas Valanciunas was out taking jumpers and looking far better walking than he has since suffering a badly sprained ankle.

Valanciunas had been limping noticeably during the Miami series and even ahead of Game 1, but was walking fine on Saturday, with no signs of a limp and no grimacing.

While suiting up for Game 4 on Monday is probably a stretch, if the big man — who had been the club’s best player in this playoff run — continues to progress, he might yet return this season (assuming the Raptors can make this series interesting).

Valanciunas was working on a new wrinkle — his outside shot. By one account, he drained 10-of-12 three-pointers from the corner at one point.

Head coach Dwane Casey has said that he thinks Valanciunas, one of the best free-throw shooting centres in the NBA and a viable mid-range marksman, eventually will add three-pointers to his arsenal.

But that’s a thought for next year. For now, the Raptors just hope to see Valanciunas back in the post sooner rather than later.

HIT AND WAIT

DeMarre Carroll saw the foul disparity in Games 1 and 2 and didn’t like it one bit. He conceded that Cleveland simply outfought a tired group of Raptors in the opener, which could help explain the 33-20 free-throw attempt edge for Cleveland, but he didn’t get the 37-18 edge in the next game at all. In fact, he was baffled by it.

When asked if the Raptors need to tone down the physicality a bit to stop getting whistled for so many fouls, Carroll said it was more a question of trying to figure out how the game is being called.

“That’s a difficult question because we’re trying to be physical, because Game 1, they were super-physical, so Game 2, we tried to be physical, but it was a different story. I guess you just have to differentiate how the refs call the game. If we can do that, we’ll be OK,” Carroll said earlier Saturday.

Well, there was no way of getting a feel for how the referees were calling this one, because they didn’t see to have a clue what they wanted to do themselves.

Which is why Carroll’s game plan probably made the most sense.

Give it your all, and hope it pays off.

“I think you should be aggressive and live with the results. If you’re passive, you’re asking yourself to lose, but if you go out there and be aggressive and physical and put the ownership on the refs, you just live with the results,” Carroll had said.

The Raptors did a good job of dealing with frustration that got Kyle Lowry into foul trouble and saw the Cavs benefit from a number of missed calls.

MAKE HIM A SHOOTER

Teams that have beaten LeBron James in past post-seasons have usually done it in part by making him a jump shooter. That was the plan when Casey led the Dallas Mavericks defence in 2011 and it has worked for the Spurs and for the Warriors last year.

James was 18-for-21 from inside of the paint over the first two games against the Raptors, just 0-for-5 from outside of it.

Carroll says forcing James to become a shooter is harder than it seems.

“Yeah, when you got Kyrie and Kevin Love and JR all around the three-point line it’s just going to open up things,” Carroll said.

“I think our biggest thing is we came in with the game plan of letting LeBron, not letting the supporting cast beat us. Now we’ve got to shift our scouting report to something different. Of course, everybody know LeBron is not a great jump shooter, so we’ve got to force him to take some jump shots.”

And once again live with the results.

He finally took his first jump shot of the series in the first quarter on Saturday and he went 3-for-6 in the half, but only 1-for-3 overall when guarded by Carroll.

Carroll felt you had to bring some pressure on James, likening it to being a sackmaster in football.

Can you go soft on him with your coverage?

“No, because when you have shooters like he has, it’s like quarterback,” Carroll said.

“I feel if you play soft on him you just allow him to (survey) the floor. So maybe if you just get aggressive you live with the results. If you foul him you foul him, if you don’t, you don’t. But with the supporting cast, he’s like a quarterback back there just picking them out. You maybe (make) like a (defensive) line, maybe want to rush somebody at him and make decisions under pressure.”

AROUND THE RIM

Bismack Biyombo had 16 rebounds in the first half alone, which tied his playoff career-high. Wilt Chamberlain holds the NBA record of 26 in a half … Cleveland only had 16 points in the paint through three quarters after managing at least 22 in every half of the first two games, per ESPN … James moved to third on the all-time playoff assists list … Toronto improved to 3-0 at home against Cleveland this season, vs. 0-3 on the road.

@WolstatSun