WARRIORS FACING UNKNOWN VARIABLE THIS TIME AROUND
Golden State knows how to win titles, but they all came at the expense of one team
This is new for the three-time champion Golden State Warriors: They aren’t in Cleveland anymore.
They have played for the NBA championship four years in a row, and all four times they played against LeBron James and the Cavaliers. This is different.
Another championship run may be old hat for the beenthere, done-that dynastic Warriors. This is all new for the Toronto Raptors.
And here we are in Toronto, where the celebration hasn’t slowed down much since Saturday night. Half the city is wearing Raptors gear. The other half is trying to buy some. We may be off the streets, but our minds are racing. Collectively, our hearts are pounding. As a sporting city, we have never been this excited, this nervous and this frenetic, all at the same time.
Well, maybe you have experienced this before. It depends on your age. But if you’re 30 and under, you’ve never experienced anything like this, a best-of-seven, coast-to-coast, Goliath versus David, America versus Canada, maybe the greatest shooting team we’ve ever seen, against the Raptors. The challenge is that immense. The possibilities are enticing.
“I’m glad we had a little rest,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “We needed some. And it was just the right amount. You don’t want too much. You don’t want too little.”
He thinks they’re ready for Golden State. But what’s Mike Tyson’s famous line about having a game plan? “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
Steph Curry can punch you in the mouth by hitting a three from Mississauga. Klay Thompson can do the same. Kevin Durant, if playing, can knock you out. Draymond Green can, too.
The Warriors have that many weapons.
The Raptors have weapons, too, they just don’t have the championship pedigree around them. Kawhi Leonard has been the best player in this year’s playoffs, having one of the great post-seasons of all time. Pascal Siakam has been occasionally great. Kyle Lowry more than that. Fred VanVleet has been enormous since becoming a dad, although he was not enormous while waiting for the baby to come.
The answers aren’t distinct or obvious. How could they be? This Golden State team is one of those teams for the ages, the way Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics were one of those teams, the way the Los Angeles Lakers — first with Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and later with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal — were those teams, the way the Chicago Bulls of Michael Jordan were one, and the way the more subtle Tim Duncan and friends in San Antonio were unforgettable champions.
The baton has been passed from dynasty to dynasty in the NBA, and for years the Raptors have been one of those teams with a paddle instead of a baton, moving in circles. But then Leonard hit a desperate arching jump shot in Game 7 against Philadelphia: bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, drop. Then, against all odds, the Raptors won four straight after losing two straight against the Milwaukee Bucks, who had the best record in the NBA.
It’s still so very hard to comprehend. That this is happening. And it’s happening now. And it’s happening here.
And damn, if that isn’t the Warriors over there, the team we watch on television late at night, the team that doesn’t lose, here as the favoured opponent.
Do the Raptors have a great chance? They have Leonard, which means they have a chance. How great? It’s impossible to know. Leonard will almost certainly be covered by Green. This puts one of the great defenders in basketball against one of the unlikely big scorers in the game. The flip side could be that one of Golden State’s great scorers, like Curry, would be covered by Leonard.
Whatever the Raptors do, Leonard is central to it. The Warriors are not so singular. That, and all that championship savvy, is reason enough to worry. But the offensive Leonard versus the defensive Green is a fascinating place to start for Game 1.
“A lot of (NBA stars) are natural, God-given scorers,” Green said. “Kawhi isn’t that. Kawhi didn’t come into this league as a scorer, yet he’s one of the best scorers we have in the league now. It just doesn’t look the same, but the results are the same and/or better. He’s really worked to get to where he is today ... and that comes with a different mindset, a different appreciation. When you have that different appreciation, it shows in your play. It is showing in his play and it shows in their team being in the NBA Finals.”
And so it begins. The obvious and the unexpected. The dynasty and the also-ran. Twenty-one experts from ESPN were asked to predict the series: Nineteen had Golden State winning. Two liked the Raptors.
Last round, just about everybody liked Milwaukee. The thing the Warriors like best: they’re playing in one of the great cities in the world. They’re not in Cleveland anymore, Toto. ssimmons@postmedia.com Twitter.com/simmonssteve