Game 6: Party on, Toronto!
Most championship teams have clear through lines that trace their journey to the top: They draft a foundational player that defines everything that comes next, or acquire one who agrees before stepping in the door to stay for a long time.
The Raptors have neither. There is no apparent modern precedent for a team trading for its only top-five player in a walk year — without free agency matching rights, without signing said player to an extension as part of the trade — and having that player lead the team to a title that same year. Toronto may be the most unconventionally constructed championship team in basketball history, and its six-game win over Golden State has insiders across the league asking: Is there anything we can learn? Can we replicate what Toronto just did?
Game 5: A most bizarre win for Golden State
Bill Russell was in the hallway. The trophy was polished. The stage was ready to roll out. The cameramen had plastic over their gear. The champagne was on ice.
The team doctors’ faces were ashen. The general manager was sobbing. The heroes, the guys who hit the big shots and the man who saved the season with a block, had knots in their stomachs not smiles on their faces.
It was a most terrible win.
There were no victors in Game 5 of the Finals Monday night. Yes, the Golden State Warriors had 106 points to the Toronto Raptors’ 105. But Kevin Durant’s Achilles injury and the circumstances around it, both in the present and future, thudded down on everyone’s chest.
Game 4: Raptors push Warriors to the brink
It’s been a balky and theme-less series, but in Game 4 something happened that would have seemed unfathomable two weeks ago. The Warriors, up by four at halftime, were outscored by 16 points in the third quarter. The Raptors pressured them on defense, double-teamed Stephen Curry, and attacked on offense, getting open shots and easy pick-and-roll baskets. In short, the Raptors out-Warriored the Warriors.
Game 3: For Toronto, there was no option but to win
It’s a daunting thing, that championship DNA. If you’re not careful, you can suffocate under the weight of the possibility of that dominance. Many playoff opponents have fallen victim to a franchise loaded with stars who, when they are rolling, are seemingly invincible.
Yet one thing was abundantly clear at Oracle Arena on Wednesday night: Toronto had no intention of wilting under the pressure of the championship pedigree of their undermanned opponents.
Game 2: Six-Minute Monster — The Warriors run that won it
The Golden State Warriors implemented the theft of these NBA Finals under the bright lights of the Scotiabank Arena in front of 19,800 incredulous witnesses wearing blood-red shirts and the stupefied daze of a crowd that just had their wallets swiped. This is what coach Steve Kerr’s team does when it discovers its collective rhythm, feeding off a savage defense that clamps down with impunity, extracts turnovers and then transforms them into transition artistry that douses the spirit of even the most resilient opponents.
Golden State returns to the Bay Area having stolen home-court advantage with a 109-104 Game 2 victory. The soul-crushing 18-0 run to begin the third quarter highlighted every weapon in the Warriors’ arsenal: the aforementioned crippling defense, devastating three-point shooting, and the kind of deft passing that keeps the ball moving and the defense guessing. It transformed a 59-54 halftime deficit into a commanding 72-59 lead that has altered the tenor of this series.
Game 1: Toronto’s version of Strength in Numbers
The blueprint against the Toronto Raptors was to reduce Kawhi Leonard’s basketball life to misery, or at the very least considerable discomfort. Blitz him, double him, triple him if necessary, force him to give up the ball and dare the others to beat you.
It was a sound strategy on paper — except the “others” were not only expecting it, but they were also aiming to exploit it. So, it was a collection of “complementary” Raptors who vaulted Toronto to win Game 1 of the NBA Finals 118-109 in a raucous Scotiabank Arena, delivering a roundhouse right to a team that so often has seemed invincible.
Meet Kawhi Leonard, the Vince Vaughn of the Finals
Hutson, now the head coach at Fresno State, would regularly get in his car and drive the roughly 100 miles north from San Diego to Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, California, to see Leonard practice and play.
Eventually, as Leonard’s star began to rise — he was named California’s Mr. Basketball after his senior season — major conference schools began calling.
Copyright: https://www.espn.com , THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn
