TORONTO -- Kyrie Irving knew he had the trust of his teammates and coaching staff with the game on the line.
With the game tied 91-91, the Cleveland Cavaliers guard took a LeBron James feed and drained a 26-foot 3-pointer sealing a 94-91 victory over the Toronto Raptors on Friday night at Air Canada Centre.
Irving finished the night 10 of 23 from the field and 5-for-9 from beyond the arc.
"The last one, 2-3 believes in me as well as all my teammates and the coaching staff," Irving said. "We've been in that situation before: trusting the pass, and he drove in the lane, got me a good look at the top of the key and I knocked it down.
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"I work on that shot every single day, I've just got to trust the shot and I think my teammates would've been even more mad at me, if I didn't take that shot whether it went in or not."
James added 21 points, eight rebounds and seven assists while Kevin Love chipped win with 18 points and 10 rebounds. James is now 21-3 in his last 24 games against the Raptors.
"I called Ky's name and he gave me the ball, I wanted to push it," James said of the play leading to Irving's winning shot. "I tried to make a move for myself, getting into the seams, but when I saw the defense collapse, I know where my guys are going to be and I knew where Kyrie was.
"I know he's a big-time player, it's a big-time moment and he knocked it down."
DeMar DeRozan led Toronto with a game-high 32 points and seven rebounds while Kyle Lowry added 17 points and four assists as the Raptors (1-1) lost for the first time this season.
"LeBron made a great play, he drove the ball and we all collapsed," Lowry said. "He kicked it out to Kyrie and he made a big shot. I don't know what happened at the other end. I was on the ground, but personally, I have to play better."
The game featured a rematch of last season's Eastern Conference finals where the Cavs defeated the Raptors in Game 6 in Toronto to advance to the NBA Finals. The win keeps the defending NBA champions remain undefeated (2-0) to start the season.
"When you go to six games with a very great opponent like the Raptors, and you play against a great point guard like Kyle, great shooting guard like DeMar, playing extremely well. We've seen what it's like and what it can get like in 'The Six'," said Irving. "It gets unbelievably loud, physical game as you saw. It got really physical. Never testy, really just a regular season game. But when you go through battles like that with a team like this, you kind of know what to expect."
DeRozan's 32 points is the most scored by a Raptor through the first two games of a season since Vince Carter scored 65 points in the first two games of the 2003-04 season.
The 27-year-old got the 19,800 in attendance out of their seats throwing down a monster one-handed jam with less than a minute remaining tying the game 91-91; however, Irving quickly silenced the crowd dropping a 3 with 44.3 seconds remaining.
After Toronto closed to within five with 6:39 to go, Cleveland pulled away using a 7-2 run and held on to lead 71-67 after three.
The Raptors, who only had 11 turnovers in Wednesday's win over Detroit, had 12 turnovers at halftime against the Cavs. Cleveland took advantage scoring nine points off the Toronto turnovers and led 50-40 at half.
"The second quarter killed us," said Raptors coach Dwane Casey. "I think we only had six (turnovers) in the second half.
"We've got to take care of the ball better."
Irving led the Cavs with 15 points and four assist while Love added 13 points and nine rebounds. James entered recess with nine points.
Cleveland led by five, 28-23 after one period on the strength of eight points and five rebounds from Love. Tristan Thompson added six points.
DeRozan had a team-high eight on 4 of 6 shooting from the field while Lowry had eight points.
NOTES: The Raptors won two of three regular season meetings with the Cavaliers last season. ... Cleveland begins a three-game home stand on Saturday against the Orlando Magic. ... Toronto concludes its three-game home stand against the Denver Nuggets on Monday. ... Raptors C Lucas Nogueira missed his second straight game with a sprained left ankle. ... Cavaliers F Channing Frye and G Mo Williams did not make the trip to Toronto. Frye was granted an indefinite leave of absence by the team after his mother passed away following a long battle with cancer.
