Morning Coffee – Sat, Jun 1

Kawhi staying; signing a 1+1 | Clippers tamper, get fined | Warriors on notice but not nervous | New Balance trolls the Bay area

Kawhi staying; signing a 1+1 | Clippers tamper, get fined | Warriors on notice but not nervous | New Balance trolls the Bay area

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNlfkV_e6jg

Toronto Raptors Had the #StrengthInNumbers Advantage in Game 1 – The Ringer

“We’ve got good players—a lot of playmakers and a lot of talent,” said Raptors guard Fred VanVleet, who kept up his torrid play from the previous round with 15 points on 5-for-8 shooting off the Toronto bench. “We’ve got to step up and make plays. They’re going to send a lot of help and doubles to not make life easy for [Leonard]. They put their best defenders on him and try to make it as tough as possible for him. So the rest of us have got to step up, make shots, make extra plays, keep the ball flowing and moving.”

Leonard still made his presence felt, finishing with 23 points, eight rebounds, five assists, and a steal in 43 minutes of work. But a quiet start for the All-Star forward spurred by Golden State’s extra defensive attention—just eight points on 2-for-7 shooting in the first half—put the onus on Toronto’s complementary pieces to seize the opportunities afforded them.

Earlier in the postseason, many of those pieces shuddered at such responsibility, preferring to move the ball in pursuit of a great look rather than taking the pretty good one the defense conceded. They betrayed no such hesitation in Game 1, though. When the Raptors took a timeout with 7:30 to go in the opening quarter, they’d already attempted eight 3-pointers, with six coming from the trio of Marc Gasol and Kyle Lowry, whose shared pass-first mentality can sometimes stifle Toronto’s offensive rhythm, and Danny Green, who entered the Finals having not made a 3 since the fourth quarter of Game 3 against Milwaukee.

“I think we had taken eight of our first nine shots were 3s, but they were open,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said after Game 1. “And I love it, because the one thing that we must do in this series, that we need to do, is go for it.”

Going for it is good. Making the shots is even better. Green got his first one to drop just over a minute into the game, Gasol’s came almost exactly two minutes later, and the fans in the stands at Scotiabank Arena exploded for each of them. (Then again, they kind of exploded for everything on Thursday. Toronto was freaking ready for its Finals debut.)

Does Toronto’s Game 1 Win Spell Doom For The Warriors? | FiveThirtyEight

chris.herring: Golden State basically acknowledged leaving certain guys open to begin the game in hopes of taking away Kawhi Leonard. That process worked, in a way. Leonard wasn’t efficient.

But as a result, everyone else — particularly Siakam and Marc Gasol, who played brilliantly — got going. Danny Green was also himself again. And Golden State was never able to turn off that faucet.

neil: Siakam might be a problem for the Warriors going forward. They didn’t have many good options to stop him. He scored 16 directly on Draymond. He also showcased his dangerous range as a 3-point shooter when rotations broke down or he trailed the play.

chris.herring: I understand why GSW was willing to take that gamble with Siakam. He’s become very good from the corners but is right around 30 percent — if not worse — from above the arc. The real issue was letting him get whatever he wanted in transition. He was 5 of 5 in transition and hit 11 shots in a row at one point — the longest streak in a finals game over the last 20 years. As good as he is, that simply can’t happen in a game like that if you’re the Warriors.

Golden State gave credit to Siakam but also largely chalked the game up to them not having seen this Raptors club before. They hadn’t played since early December, and Toronto has added Gasol, while Kawhi obviously took turns in and out of the lineup to rest.

How could Kawhi leave this? – TrueHoop

Siakam makes an incredible running mate

If there were an equation, or a formula, to attract a superstar, it would be this: You need another star—preferably an emerging one, who doesn’t eat up all the team’s cap flexibility. Long before Game 1 was over—somewhere around that ninth consecutive basket by Siakam—it occurred to me that no other team can contend for a title like the Raptors and give Kawhi the kind of young partner he has in Siakam.

Signing with a different team where a star is already on-board, or is part of the package (like the trio that partnered in Miami), brings risk. Will the stars mesh? The Heat knew what would happen thanks to the friendship among LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh. They also had played together on Team USA. Kawhi has no way to know what it would be like to play with most of the league’s stars. But he knows what life is like with Siakam.

Yes, Marc Gasol is an important piece to this team and their immediate future, as is Kyle Lowry, an incredibly rugged and high-IQ veteran. But Leonard, who has returned as one of the top five players in the league, has to be thinking about the kinds of defenses he’ll face in the next few years. He needs a partner who has superstardom in his future. It also wouldn’t hurt to be in the Eastern Conference, where gathering enough wins throughout the regular season to get home-court advantage in the playoffs seems a better option than in the packed Western Conference.

Every Kawhi suitor also is going to offer Leonard the ability to sit the second game of back-to-backs like Toronto did this season. But few can prove they have the Raptors’ culture. Think about how many Raptors are playing their best basketball of the season this spring. Other than Danny Green, every core player has had multiple MAJOR MOMENTS in the past two months.

Siakam is the perfect example of that successful culture. A 25-year-old Cameroonian who only started taking the game seriously eight years ago, he has grown immensely since the Raptors drafted him 27th in 2016. He’s the perfect complement to Leonard: still coming into his own, making only $2.4 million next year on a rookie deal, and not quite the pure scorer most max players are. Even if the Warriors win the next four games, Team Kawhi would still be hard pressed to forget Siakam’s Game 1.

Strength in numbers — The Raptors beat the Warriors at their own game – ESPN

It was Curry’s 11 first-quarter points that kept Golden State within striking distance in the opening frame. In fact, for all the good vibes the Raptors’ shooters were experiencing, the Warriors were constantly lurking. Because the defending champions can score so quickly and in such explosive fashion, even when Toronto pushed the lead to double digits, it never quite felt safe.

But as Siakam continued to wreak havoc in transition, the Raptors were able to maintain their lead wire to wire.

The most critical shot of the night came courtesy of VanVleet with 3:20 to play, shortly after the Warriors had cut the deficit to 10, 108-98. With the shot clock ticking down, VanVleet found himself pinned in the corner and let one fly. The shot rolled halfway down, halfway back up, and finally settled on counting after all.

“Klay didn’t leave me as much as I thought he would, so I didn’t have a clean look right away,” VanVleet said. “By the time I thought about it, there was only one second left, so I got a little separation, a little look, a little bit of luck.

“About time, you know? I was in a little slump, but now I’ve got some of those in the bank.”

The Warriors were hardly devastated by the events of Game 1, though they were most certainly irritated by them. They once again exhibited their maddening tendency to be careless with the basketball, and the Raptors transformed their 16 turnovers into 17 points.

Golden State also recognizes it needs to do a better job of limiting Siakam in the open floor and identifying Toronto’s shooters.

“Our transition D was horrible,” Draymond Green said. “You give guys those type of shots, they get comfortable and it’s a different beast.”

Said Curry: “You can’t give [Siakam] any dare shots, and you can’t give him any straight-line drives to the basket. That’s just an effort thing we all can be more mindful of.”

No coach wants to hear their players admit they need to be mindful about more effort; the Warriors’ swagger has always been their greatest strength — and their greatest weakness. And while acknowledging being up 1-0 is better than being down 1-0 — something this group has never experienced in the Finals — Shaun Livingston insisted his team embraces these moments. “I like the vibe,” Curry said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0gsCRMzOXU

Koreen: The Warriors might have slept on the Raptors, but they’re certainly awake now – The Athletic

The Coles Notes for the Warriors, then: No. 2 is very strong and talented; No. 43 runs fast; No. 33 is intelligent and an excellent passer for a man his size; the stocky dude wearing No. 7 is willing to give up his body for a charge against players more than a foot taller than him. Knowing your opponent’s personnel is crucial, champs.

Facetiousness aside, there is obviously a little bit of truth in what the Warriors said the other night. As they spoke themselves into the notion that nothing went wrong on Thursday that cannot be fixed by a little more effort, which is equal parts true and condescending, it is clear that the Raptors did more than enough to bring the Warriors to attention. As Green spoke glowingly about Pascal Siakam, who hung 32 points on Golden State in Game 1, you knew that this more or less extended to the whole team.

“He’s become a second option on his team,” Green said. “Some nights the first option, like last night. But I can’t say I foresaw that. I played against him last year. I had no clue he would be this guy this year.”

The Warriors mostly focused on their woes in transition defence. Siakam mentioned how much getting buckets on the run helped him out, and there was some especially egregious efforts in that area throughout the game. It is impossible to assign causation here — it could have been arrogance on Golden State’s part, or legitimate surprise or rust or just a bad night — but you get the sense it will be the thing Kerr focuses on most in the intervening days.

It is a bit funny, since it was the Raptors who were supposed to be taking pains to slow things down in the series. (And they did, at assuming they got back in the first place, as Blake Murphy pointed out in his piece on Friday.) The Raptors’ attention to detail was befitting a team that just went through two long series, getting by mostly on the strength of their defence. Transition defence was the top priority, while making Curry and Klay Thompson feel them coming off of screens or cuts was number two. Their worst defensive breakdowns happened after allowing offensive rebounds, which is understandable even if it needs to be addressed and improved.

‘We’ve got to take it ourselves’ – Nick Nurse’s journey to the NBA Finals – ESPN

Nurse made it clear he would not tolerate that. He yelled so loud, and so long, that he lost his voice, his players report. His spittle spewed perilously close to the suddenly attentive — and surprised — NBA millionaires.

“It wasn’t pretty,” Nurse says now. “I don’t do that very often. It was by far the biggest bullet I used.”

“He lit a fire under us,” Green says. “We needed it. Orlando prepared us for Philly, which prepared us for Milwaukee. He got us locked in.”

And yet, five weeks later, there they were — after trouncing the Magic in four straight and besting Philly’s four-All-Star lineup — down by 15 at home to the Bucks in Game 6, their inexperience revealing itself. It didn’t help that Leonard had blanked on his first seven 3-point attempts. “I’m watching,” confesses team president Masai Ujiri, “and I’m thinking, ‘No way in hell we’re winning this game.'”

With 5:47 remaining in the third and the score 65-52, Nurse called timeout. He reminded the Raptors that they had made up a deficit like this just days before. He implored them to relax. “He was very composed,” reports Leonard, who also spoke in the huddle, encouraging teammates to embrace the moment.

Toronto roared back. The Raptors advanced.

“Nobody is giving us a thing,” their coach declared. “We’ve got to take it ourselves.”

Warriors at Raptors: 6/2/19 Finals game 2 betting odds, analysis, info – Golden State Of Mind

Golden State has been criticized for its defense all year and it was hypothesized as a potential Achilles Heel in their quest for a three-peat, and those premonitions came to fruition in game one of the NBA Finals, compounded by the Warriors’ inability to generate consistent offense against and turnovers caused by the physical and long Raptors defense.

The last time the Warriors faced a similarly long and athletic team late in the playoffs was the 2016 Western Conference Finals against Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder, when they were run out of the Thunder’s gym in the first two games in Oklahoma City, going down 1-3 and needing a transcendent game from Klay on the road to miraculously get back in the series.

The other weakness that was exposed during those 2016 playoffs was the Warriors lacking someone who could get their shot in any situation, given how Harrison Barnes seemed unable to do so for much of those playoffs, and it directly led to the signing of Kevin Durant, whose presence was sorely missed in game one.

We’ve enjoyed flashes of 2015 at times when Kevin Durant has been out, but there was a reason the Warriors almost lost to the Thunder and squandered a 3-1 lead in the Finals in 2016 and Kevin Durant was the solution then and he may be what the Warriors need now.

Aside from the aforementioned moments, the most anxiety provoking playoff situations that have occurred during this Golden Age of Warriors basketball has been when Andre Iguodala has been hurt, as exemplified by the 2018 Western Conference Finals against Houston, and his being listed as probable does nothing to alleviate our deep concerns that something is not right with him.

Not having Kevin Durant for game two, taken together with the current momentum of the Raptors’ play, makes us wary of picking the Warriors in game two. But if Andre is playing with any kind of pain, DubNation might have to prepare for the possibility of being down two games when the series shifts to Oakland.

Absence of Durant hurt Warriors as Golden State prepares for Game 2 minus K.D. | Toronto Sun

The Raptors know Draymond Green won’t allow Pascal Siakam to play like a Scottie Pippen and the Raptors know the Splash Brothers (Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson) will make more shots.

The unknown applies to Golden State’s bench and the kind of impact the Warriors’ reserves will have Sunday. The series shifts to Oakland’s Oracle Arena as the venue sees the last of the team before the franchise moves across the Bay to San Francisco.

Golden State remains a dangerous, lethal opponent for the simple fact that both Steph Curry and Klay Thompson can take over games by themselves.

Green is the kind of player who always bounces back and his stated mission heading into Sunday is to limit Siakam.

When both Curry and Thompson are lighting up the opposition with their playmaking and shotmaking, Durant’s injury gets mitigated, especially when the Warriors find that other gear on the defensive.

In Game 1, the Warriors turned the ball over 17 times, while allowing the Raptors to shoot 50% from the field.

The decision was made to double-team Kawhi Leonard, but Siakam and Marc Gasol would combine to score 52 points on 20-of-27 shooting.

Golden State is such a good team that it can still repeat without Durant, but Game 1 revealed the challenges.

Raptors have areas where they can improve for remainder of NBA Finals – Video – TSN

For all that the Raptors have done well throughout the playoffs, they still could use some cleaning up on the glass with second-chance points having done some damage against them. James Duthie and Jack Armstrong discuss and weigh in on the impact that Andre Iguodala can have on this series, especially with the absence of Kevin Durant.

Thoughts on Game 1: Siakam, Gasol and more – TSN.ca

3. TURNOVER MARGIN: Raptors win this category 16-10 and score 24 fast break points. When you play the Warriors you’ve got to keep them out if transition and make them play half court while taking advantage yourself of running chances before there Defence sets up. It’s a big area to keep an eye on.

Kawhi Leonard tampering: Was NBA right to fine Clippers, Doc Rivers? | SI.com

Rivers, as a commentator, didn’t disappoint. He went so far as to compare Leonard to the greatest player in NBA history, Michael Jordan. “Kawhi is the most like Jordan we’ve seen,” Rivers opined. “There are a lot of great players—Lebron is phenomenal, KD is phenomenal—but, not that he is Jordan or anything like that, but he is the most like him. Big hands, post-game, can finish, great leaper, great defender, in between game, if he beats you to the spot bump you off and then you add his three-point shooting.”

The conversation made for great TV. It was as if Rivers had once again become a TV commentator and had once again shared with viewers his unique and engaging perspectives.

But there was a problem. Rivers isn’t a commentator. He’s the coach of the Los Angeles Clippers and under NBA rules, coaches can’t comment about players who are under contract to other NBA teams. Such comments can be perceived as impermissible overtures or unsanctioned inducements.

Article 35A of the league constitution makes this point explicitly clear. It applies to coaches, general managers and owners, among others. Article 35A defines tampering as any attempt to entice, induce or persuade a person who is under contract with another team to join the tampering team.

It’s long been said that “flattery will get you everywhere” and, conversely, that “flattery will get you nowhere.” In the NBA, flattery will get a coach in trouble. Adulation counts as tampering since it can influence a player’s employment decision. In a league with a collectively-bargained salary cap and max salaries—and thus one where teams sometimes can’t outbid each other—a coach offering the highest praise to star players can be particularly swaying.

NBA Fines Doc Rivers $50,000 For Saying Kawhi Leonard Is Good – Deadspin

Rivers was a guest on an NBA Finals preview show on ESPN on Thursday night, during which he and a few other panelists were asked to talk about Kawhi Leonard. Because Rivers is a human being who can see obvious things, he said that Leonard was a very good player and described him as, “the most like [Michael] Jordan we’ve seen.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAwkWjONoPk

Kawhi Leonard’s free agency is a touchy subject, and Clippers paid the price – Los Angeles Times

But players tamper all the time. They talk. They text. They recruit. And coaches? Before every game of the NBA season, they’re asked to comment about their opposition.

So it’s on the NBA to police this when it seems like a team has gone too far, when a statement is more than a statement.

“Doc’s been at this a long time,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver told reporters Friday. “It’s not a fun part of my job ever fining anyone. And I understand the competing interest of the media hearing a coach’s view about a current NBA player, but it’s something where there’s a bright line in this league and you’re not allowed to do it. And coaches and team executives in those positions need to say, ‘I’m not permitted by the league to respond to that question.’ And it’s a balance of interests. I get that. But he unfortunately crossed a bright line.”

If Dallas coach Rick Carlisle is on the show and says the same thing as Rivers, there’s no fine. If it’s Portland’s Terry Stotts or Indiana’s Nate McMillan, no one writes a check.

The Clippers got fined because they want Kawhi Leonard, because they compared him to Michael Jordan — Leonard’s admiration for Jordan is detailed in Clippers employee Lee Jenkins’ wonderful Sports Illustrated profile from 2016 — and because they’re a credible threat to sign him.

If it was New York Knicks coach David Fizdale saying the same thing about Kevin Durant? The league might make a call. Ultimately, active coaches and executives probably shouldn’t be put in the position as commentators to avoid this in the future.

Regardless, Leonard’s free agency is a huge story in Toronto, even with the team playing in its first NBA Finals. Even with news that Durant is nearing a return but will miss Game 2 and that Andre Iguodala will be good to go Sunday, Leonard’s potential exit is a huge deal here.

NBA Finals: Raptors’ underdog Pascal Siakam is Warriors’ unlikely nemesis – New York Post

After the win, in which he became the first player since Shaquille O’Neal 15 years ago to score 30 points on 80 percent shooting in an NBA Finals game, Siakam dedicated it to his deceased father. He was killed in a car crash when Siakam was 18 and in college.

Siakam called it “the turning point of my life’’ that he was unable to go to Cameroon for the funeral because of visa issues.

“In terms of adversity, I considered that the hardest moment of my life,’’ Siakam said. “I was in college and just away from my family. Thank God I had the support of my teammates and coaches in college. It was definitely one of the toughest moments in my life, not being able to go home for the funeral.’’

The 6-foot-9 forward represents the new-age big man, quick enough to dart to the perimeter to defend. He’s the top performer in the playoffs in contesting 3-pointers — a new analytic that is gaining steam. He’s terrific around the rim and will give the Warriors, still without Kevin Durant, nightmares looking to slow him down before Sunday’s Game 2.

His nickname is Spice P, as he explained on a podcast, “I don’t eat spicy food because I’m spicy enough.’’

When told of Green’s edict to shut him out, Siakam responded with polite blandness.

“It’s just going back and watching the film and looking at ways I can get better,’’ Siakam said. “They’re going to make adjustments and I have to be ready for whatever comes at me.’’

Lowry, Gasol’s impact felt all over the court – Video – TSN

Kyle Lowry finished with only seven points, but that didn’t matter for the Raptors because his defence and playmaking were out in full force in Game 1. The TSN Raptors panel praise Lowry’s play, talk about Marc Gasol’s impact and touch on what to expect from the Warriors moving forward.

Pascal Siakam, Raptors Already Putting Kevin Durant-Less Warriors on Notice | Bleacher Report

Kevin Durant’s partially torn calf muscle, meanwhile, looms over this entire series. He traveled with the team but isn’t expected to suit up for Game 2. His absence humanizes the Warriors, even if only slightly on some nights. His return, if it comes, stands to upset-proof them once more.

And yet, to completely ignore the Raptors’ Game 1 performance is an equal miscalculation. They had a chance entering the NBA Finals—happy-to-be-here optimism rooted in Durant’s absence, but a form of hope all the same.

That conditional optimism is now something more. The Raptors’ case has fewer strings attached, not just because of Game 1, but because everyone around Leonard already started peaking before it.

Siakam’s iconic stat line is an extreme, but it’s not a complete deviation. He has jockeyed with Lowry all season for the rights to Toronto’s fictive “Second-Best Player” award, and the Raptors are no stranger to him outperforming everyone else on the floor.

He is the favorite to win Most Improved Player honors. He earned almost as many second-team All-Defense votes (24) as Leonard (29). Leonard, Danilo Gallinari and Karl-Anthony Towns were the only other players this season to clear 19 points, seven rebounds, three assists and one made three-pointer per 36 minutes with a true shooting percentage north of 60.

Skeptics received license to doubt Siakam’s rise in the Eastern Conference Finals. He shot just 40 percent from the floor overall and 25 percent on threes, and Toronto’s half-court offense felt it.

That was one series, and it came after Siakam suffered a calf injury during the Raptors’ second-round matchup with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Why Warriors must recognize Raptors as toughest NBA Finals foe yet | NBCS Bay Area

It’s one thing to hear a team express concern about its defensive rotations, another to visualize an easy solution against a team with so many live shooters.

And then there is the third factor and one that maybe the Warriors could not have anticipated: They were outfought, out-thought and overrun by a team that never blinked while fending off every comeback attempt.

“Those guys were playing off their momentum,” Livingston said. “They’d won four in a row. They’re playing with confidence.”

Facing the No. 1 seed Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference finals, the Raptors lost the first two games and regrouped to win the next four. They won by margins large and small. They followed Kawhi Leonard, the most accomplished playoff veteran on the roster, and they now have the vibe of a team that believes in itself.

A lot like the Warriors of 2015.

The Warriors of now have no reason to believe they can’t recover by Sunday, take Game 2 and return to Oakland with homecourt advantage. It’s absolutely conceivable.

“I’m sure we have the right sense of urgency and we respect their team,” Iguodala said. “Appropriate fear is one of our mottos. We respect that team and they deserve the right to be here. I think we come out of this looking at things we can do differently to put us in a better position to win the games.”

Friday and Saturday will be massive for the Warriors and their search for solutions. They will find some, no doubt, and maybe that will be enough to even the series.

But they ought to recognize they’ve been punched by a beast the likes of which they’ve yet to confront. The Warriors are too seasoned to flinch at the sight their blood or teeth, but they surely know that winning this series is going to take the best they have.

Raptors handling first-time Finals obstacles like trusted vets | Toronto Sun

But now the degree of difficulty only gets higher. The Raptors have proved they can handle the moment. Now they have to handle the push-back from the Warriors, and, don’t kid yourself, it’s coming.

It’s been a while since the Warriors were down after a Game 1 in a series, but they have been here before and they know how to react.

Nurse is well aware of this, so he doubled down on the film study of Game 1 with his team on Friday and focussed on what they could improve on.

“We know that after a win, the team that gets beat gets really determined,” Nurse said. “They try to fix things. They mostly play a lot harder and more physical and all those kind of things. And for us, we just had a lengthy, lengthy film session. There was plenty on there that we need to do better if we want to win another game in this series.”

And within that statement is probably the best reason why the Raptors fanbase can have confidence that this David vs. Goliath matchup is that in name only.

The Warriors have the pedigree, they have the resume. They are Goliath. But what the Raptors have is an approach that ensures they aren’t beaten before they take the court.

Reputation and resume are an advantage only if you let it be so.

Pascal Siakam and the Raptors Showed Why the Warriors Aren’t Better Without Kevin Durant | Complex

That might come off as cocksure, but the Warriors have captured three of the last four titles, and this is their fifth straight Finals—something no team (remember, LeBron changed teams during his run of eight straight) has done since Bill Russell’s Celtics. That buys them a reprieve from panic. You knew Draymond—who had that triple-double, but got owned in his matchup with Siakam—wasn’t going to sound the alarm quite yet.

“We’ve got to win one game on the road and I like where we are,” he said after the game. “Now that we’ve got a feel for them, we’ve got a tape to watch. We know what we can do better,” he added. “We leave this game feeling as good as you possibly can feel knowing that, yeah, we lost, but I think we figured some things out and we’ll be better next game.”

It’s anybody’s guess whether Green and Curry will prove prescient when Game 2 tips Sunday night. For now, we can marvel at what Siakam was able to accomplish in his first ever Finals appearance. He joined elite company with his final line. Only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tim Duncan, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Dr. J have dropped 30-plus points in their first Finals appearance. That’s not bad company to keep.

Up at the podium, Siakam turned inward. His father passed away in a car crash in 2014, and after the game he put things in perspective. “I kind of want to hear [how proud he is] from his mouth,” he said. “I think it would be really cool. But for me like I always say, man, it’s bigger than basketball, and every night that I go out there, I have a bigger purpose, and I play for something bigger than just basketball.”

The Six is counting on it.

How Kawhi Helped The Raptors Grow The Biggest Small Market In The NBA – Uproxx

“The whole 90s appeal of the way they branded the team definitely worked on me and everybody else I know,” said Katie Heindl, an NBA writer who as a young girl became a Raptors fan right out of the gate. She even voted for the name in the Toronto Star poll.

“Jurassic Park had just came out and I loved that movie, so I voted for the Raptors,” she said. “I distinctly remember that moment and becoming hooked on basketball from then on out.”

Heindl, a Canadian growing up in a country transfixed by hockey, wasn’t a sports fan until then. She described the Raptors as an “entryway” into a world that had otherwise “felt kind of closed off to me.” And she’s certainly not alone: for a long time, the Raptors were the Others when it came to Toronto sports. When the Raptors were named, the Blue Jays were two-time defending World Series champions, and the end all, be all of Toronto sports was and still is the NHL’s Maple Leafs.

Most Americans have never been to Canada, let alone know where Toronto is on the northern shores of Lake Ontario. But growing up 90 minutes away in Niagara Falls, New York, Toronto loomed large. Heavy-spending Leafs fans would flood in for games against the Buffalo Sabres because the ticket prices were so much cheaper in Buffalo than in Toronto. They were, simply put, the big bad. Even when the team was bad.

NBA Finals Pascal Siakam leads Toronto Raptors to Game 1 victory — Quartz Africa

While Siakam is not the first NBA player from Cameroon (that was Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje who played 44 games from 2001 to 2004 for Portland Trailblazers), becoming one of the league’s biggest stars by playing a defining role in a championship-winning season is the sort of thing that can trigger wider local interest. That was the case in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Nigeria when legendary Hakeem Olajuwon thrived with the Houston Rockets and won back-to-back championships.

As it turns out, Siakam’s run to the Finals has also come at the expense of another Cameroonian as the Raptors defeated Joel Embiid—who was also first discovered at one of Mbah a Moute’s camps—and his Philadelphia Sixers in a thrilling seven-game series.

To win the championship, Siakam and the Raptors will have to defeat Golden State Warriors, the heavy favorites and winners of three of the last four championships, in a high-pressure seven-game series. So far however, Siakam has shown no nerves in the biggest series of his career scoring a playoff career-high 32 points in Game 1 against the Warriors on Thursday (May 30) to give the Raptors a crucial lead in the race for the championship.

Pascal Siakam’s dominant NBA Finals Game 1 is great news for his Raptors teammates – SBNation.com

On a night where Kawhi Leonard wasn’t his superhuman self, Siakam was the best player on the floor. He got to his spots at will, never forcing anything. It was as if he was comfortable playing under the crushing pressure of a high-stakes game, as if it were himself in the gym, practicing every move he’d worked on to get to this point. At one point in the game, Siakam didn’t miss for 11 straight field goals.

Siakam’s performance was of the utmost importance because it forces the Warriors to shift their defensive game plan. All night, Golden State sent a double team to Leonard and had a third defender lurking in case he beat two. This is the ultimate sign of respect: admitting it’s impossible to stop him straight-up, so the team has to send the house.

Overloading on Leonard worked in this regard: he finished with 23 points on only 5-of-14 shooting from the field. But Leonard, much like he has at points in Toronto’s series victories against Philadelphia and Milwaukee, became a part-time decoy, enabling the other Raptors to rise the occasion.

Siakam’s offensive brilliance allowed that to happen. With Leonard unable to be the dominant scorer we’ve known him to be in these playoffs, Siakam, the NBA’s frontrunner for Most Improved Player of the Year, showed why he’s just that. There was no one-on-one matchup he didn’t like. Siakam looked like a guard in a raw center’s body, and Golden State had no answer for him. You rarely see that from the defending champions.

The iconic voice of the Toronto Raptors has seen it all – The Undefeated

Over the years, Kuhn has built strong friendships with several Raptors players with whom he still keeps in contact, including Dell Curry, Anthony Parker and Mo Peterson. Parker said he regularly texts with Kuhn.

“From the beginning, Herbie became a huge part of my experience in Toronto,” Parker told The Undefeated. “Everyone knows I loved my time in Toronto, and Herbie was a huge part of that.”

Dell Curry, 54, played with the Raptors from 1999 to 2002, the final three seasons of his 16-year NBA career. It wasn’t uncommon at that time for Kuhn to see the sharpshooter and his wife, Sonya, with their young children, Stephen and Seth, getting shots up on the court after games.

“I remember Steph and Seth maybe up to my shoulder taking shots on the court,” Kuhn said. “And most of them went in. I had great memories of the Currys. Dell and Sonya are such wonderful and caring individuals who just look you in the eye and take the time to ask how you are doing. They’ve raised a couple of boys and a daughter who are like that as well.

Raptors beat Warriors in Game 1, Drake celebrates as only Drake can – SBNation.com

The Raptors beat up and beat the Warriors on Thursday to take a 1-0 lead in the NBA Finals, much to the pleasure and relief of those of us who picked Toronto to win the series. A Golden State sweep has been avoided, and the Raptors looked really good! Pascal Siakam looked especially good: he scored 32 points on 14-17 shooting (with 8 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 blocks for good measure). Marc Gasol (20 points in 13 shooting possessions) and Fred VanVleet (5-8 from the floor, 15 points) were really good on offense, too.

Notably, Kawhi Leonard struggled on offense as the Andre Iguodala and Kevon Looney did credible jobs one-on-one and the Warriors shaded lots of help toward him. But Leonard managed to draw a bunch of fouls to stay efficient. Kyle Lowry did shoot much or well (just 7 points), but he played stellar defense and moved the ball extremely well. This was a good Kyle Lowry game.

The Toronto defense is where the power lies: they made life extremely tough for the Warriors by forcing them inside the arc. The only thing that kept Golden State in it was Steph Curry’s attacking and foul-drawing. This was an incredible example of why Kevin Durant — who can create a shot from anywhere on the floor at any time — is so valuable. He could have turned the tide here. But he’s still not available.

Drake put an exclamation mark on the whole thing by barking some trash talk at Draymond Green as the Warriors left the floor. He wore a Dell Curry Raptors jersey to the game. Spicy! We also have a new meme to replace the Hotline Bling meme.

NBA Finals: Siakam’s amazing story leads to Game 1 hero status – USA Today

He delivered big-time, making 14-of-17 shots, including 9-of-10 for 20 points in the second half. He is the first player to score 30 or more points on at least 80% shooting in the Finals since Shaquille O’Neal in 2004.

The Warriors weren’t nearly as physical with Siakam as they needed to be, and Golden State’s elite defender Draymond Green took responsibility.

“I let him get in a rhythm in the first half — first quarter really,” Green said. “So I’ve got to do a better job of taking his rhythm away, and I will, but he had a great game. But that’s on me.”

Siakam, whose three brothers played Division I basketball, understands the amazing aspect of his journey.

“It’s something that it’s so cliché most of the time, but that’s the story of my life, just going out there every single night, working hard to get to this level, and knowing that I have so much to learn and I have so much room to improve and grow,” he said.

After the game on ABC, he dedicated the game to his father Tchamo who died in a car accident in 2014.

He shared a tender moment in the postgame news conference. He wished his father was still around so he could hear how proud his dad would be.

“I kind of want to hear it from his mouth, and I think it would be really cool,” Siakam said. “But for me like I always say, man, it’s bigger than basketball, and every night that I go out there, I have a bigger purpose, and I play for something bigger than just basketball. And I think that’s what make it special that every night I’m out there, no matter the result, no matter how many points I score, I’m playing for something bigger than myself.”

Did I miss anything Send me any Raptors-related article/video to rapsfan@raptorsrepublic.com

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