On the road again

For the Golden State Warriors to retain the NBA crown this season, they’ll need to beat the Eastern Conference challenger Toronto at least once on the Raptors homecourt. So what else is new?

The Finals best-of-7 format is 2-2-1-1-1 which means Toronto, owing to its 58-24 regular season record compared to the Warriors’ 57-25, will host the first two games then if necessary, Games 5 and 7. The war begins in Toronto tomorrow morning (Manila time) with Game 2 set in Toronto on Monday (Manila), Game 3 in Oakland on Thursday (Manila) and Game 4 in Oakland on Saturday (Manila). It takes four wins to clinch so if the Warriors are scheduled to host a maximum of three games, they must pick up at least a win on the road to win their fourth championship in five years.

Winning on the road isn’t as difficult for Golden State as it is for Toronto. In the regular season, the Raptors’ road record was 26-15 compared to the Warriors’ 27-14.  In the playoffs, the Warriors are 6-2 on the road and the Raptors, 4-4. In Golden State’s four Finals wins, the Warriors clinched on the road thrice – in Game 4 over Washington in 1975, in Game 6 over Cleveland in 2015 and in Game 4 over Cleveland last season. The only Finals that the Warriors wrapped up at the Oracle Arena was in 2017 when they closed out the Cavaliers in Game 5.

In the first round of the playoffs, Golden State won three straight road games over the L. A. Clippers to end the series in six. Curiously, the Warriors lost twice at home – in Game 2 where the Clippers won, 135-131 in overtime and in Game 5 which L. A. took, 129-121. In the second round, however, Golden State lost two straight on the road to Houston – in Game 3 (126-121 in overtime) and in Game 4 (112-108). In the Western Conference Finals, the Warriors beat Portland twice on the road, in Game 3 (110-99) and Game 4 (119-117 in overtime). 

Toronto’s home record in the regular season was 32-9, better than Golden State’s 30-11 at the Oracle. In the playoffs, the Raptors’ home record is 8-2. The only Toronto home losses in the playoffs were to Orlando, 104-101, in the Game 1 of the first round and to Philadelphia, 94-89, in Game 2 of the second round. The Raptors are unbeaten at home in their last five playoff outings – that’s a streak the Warriors must snap.

Entering the Finals, Toronto has won its last four games and Golden State, its last six. In the playoffs, Kawhi Leonard was the Raptors’ leading scorer in 15 of their 18 games. Twice, Leonard has gone over the 40-point mark, in Game 1 of the 76ers series with 45 and in Game 7 of the same series with 41. The only other Raptors to lead the team in scoring in a game were Cameroon’s Pascal Siakam (30 in Game 3 against Orlando and 25 in Game 5 against the Sixers) and Kyle Lowry (25 in Game 4 against Milwaukee). 

On the Golden State side, Kevin Durant was the top scorer in eight of the Warriors’ 16 playoff games. K. D. sat out the last five contests with a strained right calf. He won’t play in Game 1 of the Finals for sure and may miss the entire Finals. Steph Curry was the leading scorer in seven games, including the last five where K. D. was out of commission. Klay Thompson was the only other Warrior to top the team in scoring in a playoff game with 27 in Game 5 against Houston.

In the regular season, the Raptors beat Golden State twice in as many meetings, 131-128 in overtime in Toronto and 113-93 in Oakland. In the overtime game, the Warriors played without Curry, DeMarcus Cousins and Draymond Green. In the Oakland contest, Andre Igoudala and Cousins didn’t play for Golden State while Leonard didn’t suit up for Toronto. The keys to the Raptors’ 113-93 romp were they outscored the Warriors from beyond the arc, nine to six and had the edge in turnovers, 11 to 19. Thompson was 0-of-5 from triple territory.

Toronto is in its first-ever Finals and it’s a credit to team president Masai Ujiri, an English-born Nigerian-Kenyan who started his NBA career as an unpaid Orlando scout in 2002 then rose from the ranks to become the Raptors general manager in 2013, signing a five-year $15 million contract. In 2016, he was promoted to president. When Raptors’ first-year head coach Nick Nurse was a coach in the British league, Ujiri was a player so they go back over 20 years ago. It was Ujiri who negotiated for Leonard to move to Toronto.

Nurse realizes that playing tough defense is the only way Toronto has a chance to beat the Warriors. “I just think defensively, the game is changing so much,” he said, quoted by Mike McGraw in Lindy’s Sports Pro Basketball 2018-19. “The game is changing so much before our eyes. We’ve got to be innovative. We’ve got to be trying to think about what’s coming next before it comes next if you want to stay ahead of the game.”