Far from a ‘wrap?’

It’ll take four wins to wrap up the NBA Finals series and the Toronto Raptors are now three away from becoming the first team outside the US to capture the Larry O’Brien Trophy. That’s far from a wrap for the Raps. But unless the Golden State Warriors display the resiliency and consistency they did in bagging three titles over the last four seasons, Toronto might just pull the rug from under the defending champions.

Toronto has the homecourt advantage by virtue of a better regular season record than Golden State so for the Warriors to clinch, they’ll need to win at least one on the road. That’s no big deal for coach Steve Kerr’s charges. In three of their four Finals victories, the Warriors clinched away from home. But the situation is a little bit different now. Kerr has serious injury issues to contend with. Kevin Durant has sat out the last six playoff games. His absence wasn’t felt when Golden State swept Portland in the Western Conference Finals but against a Toronto squad that’s more balanced than the Trail Blazers, Kerr is missing him badly. In the four Golden State Finals wins, the Warriors won every Game 1 at home.

Golden State’s problem is reliable depth and if key players are down with injuries, it creates a major downside. In Game 1 of the Finals last Friday (Manila time), the Warriors started role player Jordan Bell at center. He delivered two points and three rebounds in 11:37 minutes. Draymond Green logged 40:21 minutes, Steph Curry 40:15 and Klay Thompson 39:19. Only two other Warriors played at least 20 minutes – Kevon Looney 28:20 and Andre Igoudala 29:11. In contrast, only Kawhi Leonard saw action for at least 40 minutes, timing in 43:03. Kerr sent in six players from the bench and Toronto, four but Golden State’s offense was still heavily concentrated on Curry and Thompson who took a combined 35 attempts of the Warriors’ 78.

Kerr has 10 returning players from last year’s title squad but five didn’t average even five points a game. Bell averaged 2.4 points in the playoffs last season. Durant is scratched for Game 2 tomorrow morning (Manila time) but Kerr hopes he’ll be reactivated sooner than later. Igoudala limped off the court in Game 1 but the prognosis is he’ll be ready for Game 2. How ready is a question mark. DeMarcus Cousins had played only two games in the playoffs then was on the court for 8:03 minutes in Game 1, finishing with no rebound. For sure, he’ll play with more impact as the series moves on. Toronto took the opener, 118-109.

Losing Game 1, however, isn’t the end of the world for Golden State. Kerr is a master of adjustments. His gambit in the opener was to hound Leonard into taking bad shots, making mistakes and passing instead of shooting. Thompson, Looney, Green, Igoudala, Shaun Livingston and Alfonzo McKinnie took turns defending the Claw who wound up hitting a poor 35.7 percent from the floor.  Toronto coach Nick Nurse adjusted to the situation, stepped up the pace to relieve the Raps of the Warriors’ defensive pressure and put Golden State on the backfoot by playing off the focus on Leonard. As a result, the Raptors shot 24 fastbreak points compared to the Warriors’ 17. Toronto forced 17 turnovers on Golden State while the Raps had only 10. The Raps compiled more points in the paint, 40-32 and shot at a higher clip from the field, 50.6 percent to 43.6 percent.

Game 1 started off with Toronto sinking its first four baskets from beyond the arc and Golden State scoring its first two buckets from offensive rebounds. That set the tone for what unfolded. The Warriors dared the Raps to shoot from deep and the gamble backfired. Leonard knocked down 3-of-6, Pascal Siakam 2-of-3, Mac Gasol 2-of-4 and Danny Green 3-of-7. Golden State’s offensive rebounding sputtered along the way and the Warriors finished with only nine in that department.

Siakam, 25, was phenomenal, hitting 14-of-17 from the floor and ending up with 32 points in his first Finals appearance. For someone who started playing the game at 16, his development has been astounding. It’s a pity Siakam and the other Cameroonian NBA players Joel Embiid and Luc Mbah a Moute didn’t play for their national team in the FIBA Africa World Cup Qualifiers. Ivory Coast nosed out Cameroon for the last Africa ticket to China with a +8 differential. Siakam took advantage of Toronto’s pace to create scoring opportunities and was a handful for the Warriors. He’s dedicating his playoff performance to his late father Tchamo who died from injuries in a car accident in 2014, writing “RIP Dad” on his kicks.

An off-the-bench player who was a charm for Nurse was Fred VanVleet, undrafted in 2016 after averaging 10.2 points in 141 games over four seasons with the Wichita State varsity. The six-foot guard, 25, is in his third NBA year and averaged only 2.9 points as a rookie. In Game 1, he shot 15 points in 33:06 minutes, providing the spark from the bench that the Warriors had little of. Like Siakam, VanVleet lost his father under difficult circumstances. His father Fred Manning was shot dead in a drug deal involving gangs in 1999. Siakam and VanVleet are playing for more than just a trophy – they’re playing for their fathers.