GRITTY RAPTORS HALFWAY HOME IN NBA TITLE BID
Curry’s playoff performance for the ages not enough to carry defending champions
Steph Curry kept punching and punching, shooting and making plays in a championship playoff performance for the ages.
An unforgettable night of personal basketball.
It was everything you would want to see from a generational star, a giant performance from the smallest of the Golden State Warriors.
If only it was just another night against another team.
But the NBA Finals aren’t about one player and the short-handed Golden State Warriors, missing the giant Kevin Durant, missing the brilliant shooter, Klay Thompson, missing the dependable defender, Kevon Looney, received one gigantic outing from Curry, but it wasn’t enough to beat a team, the Toronto Raptors, by himself.
One man couldn’t beat a team all by himself — although damn, Curry tried. He pushed, he moved, he faked, he tossed up threes from all over the court ... and as he did that, the Raptors systematically broke down the rest of the Warriors, winning this game they absolutely needed to win, going ahead 2-1 at the ancient Oracle Arena in the best of seven NBA Finals.
It still seems so hard to believe, so difficult to take this all in. The Raptors play here again on Friday night, not knowing if Durant can play, not knowing if Thompson can play — that’s about 55 points worth of player scoring on a given night, 65 if you count Looney, and Curry did just about everything to keep the Warriors in the game, even though they trailed after the first quarter, halftime and at the end of three quarters.
The Raptors are now halfway to a championship in this series. Pause as you read those words. And take a deep breath. They have two wins. They need four.
They’re in position to make history with the Warriors crumbling with health concerns, with the Raptors clearly the deeper and at this stage, the healthier of the two teams.
It’s that close. It is that unbelievable. It seems to be happening.
The Raptors depth was apparent in Game 3.
Danny Green, hot and cold throughout the playoffs, was hot Wednesday night.
Fred VanVleet, too small to play in the Philadelphia series, has been superb defensively against the Warriors.
Kyle Lowry had his best scoring game of the series for the Raptors and early on, Marc Gasol was clearly part of the game plan, getting the ball inside against Golden State.
Going into the game, the Raptors were 8-1 in the playoffs when Gasol scored nine points or more, and by halftime he had that many. Now 9-1.
And the one player who was supposed to be a counter to Curry’s brilliance, Kawhi Leonard, struggled on this night, even though he finished with 30 points. He never seemed comfortable with the ball. He wasn’t shooting or driving freely. The signature playoff night the Raptors have been waiting for will have to come another night. It didn’t come last night.
But as he has managed in other playoff games, Leonard found his place later in the game, making huge second half buckets. With the Warriors playing on fumes in the fourth quarter, they had no answer at the end for Leonard.
But this was a team victory against the brilliantly gifted Curry, who ended with 47 points.,
The conversation, all through the playoffs long, has been about who the Most Valuable Players have been. The Western voices have pointed to Curry, who grew by leaps and bounds from the time Durant went out. The Eastern voices have pointed to Kawhi, who hit the winner in the Philly series and then led the Raptors past Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks.
Game 3 was advantage Curry, who scored the most points he has ever had in a playoff game.
Game 3 was advantage Raptors over Warriors. That’s the exciting part for Toronto. This is brand new. This is a walk towards history. With still a lot of steps to take. But the important step last night was the victory. The victory that just about everybody contributed to.
Every time the Warriors made a run in Game 3, the Raptors came right back. Much of the night they led by 10 points or more, but the Warriors would bring it back to eight or seven, and then the score would fall back again. The Raptors were relentless and they had to be. They were as defensively strong as they have been through the playoffs. They basically led from start to finish on Wednesday night — and how rare is that in an NBA game.
So now the questions: Can Durant get healthy enough to play in Game 4? Can the superb shooting Thompson be healthy enough to return as well? Can one or either of them play at all?
And if they can’t, does that mean a championship that’s 24 years in the making for the Raptors, 26 years in the making for the city of Toronto in a major league capacity, is apparent.
It’s close. It’s getting closer. It’s hugely exciting. The Raptors saw the best of Steph Curry and found a way to be better. That, by itself, is remarkable, just as the story of this playoff season grows in significance.