The Board Man Gets Paid | DeRozan was sacrificed to get us here | Lowry needs to step up | Raptors need to step on the throats of the wounded Warriors
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Pascal Siakam Still Has Another Level to Reach Against the Warriors – The Ringer
Getting Siakam going will be one of the keys for Toronto in Game 3 on Wednesday. He needs the right matchup to be successful. There is no guarantee that he will have any more success against Iguodala than he did in Game 2. He doesn’t have the same edge in quickness in that duel that he does against Draymond, and he can’t overpower Iguodala, either. Toronto head coach Nick Nurse will have to adjust his lineups. The biggest mismatch for Siakam among the other Golden State starters is DeMarcus Cousins, who had a big offensive game in Game 2 (11 points and six assists), but hid on Marc Gasol on defense. It’s hard to imagine Cousins, who is still recovering from injuries to his quad and Achilles, being able to stick with Siakam in space.
Playing Siakam at the 5 would have a number of advantages for Toronto. It would also allow the Raptors to keep their best perimeter shot-creators (Lowry and Fred VanVleet) and defender (Danny Green) on the floor at the same time. They can’t play all three while also playing Kawhi, Siakam, and one of their 5s (Gasol or Serge Ibaka). There would be nowhere to hide Cousins against a small-ball lineup. Either he would have to guard Siakam or Kawhi, or he would have to chase a guard around the 3-point line. Golden State would be caught in the horns of a dilemma. The Warriors need Cousins on offense, especially if Thompson and Kevon Looney are limited after suffering injuries in Game 2, but he would kill them on defense.
But while Nurse has made his name as a fairly flexible coach, he has been reluctant to play Siakam at the 5 in the playoffs. Siakam has played far more as a 3 next to both Gasol and Ibaka (36 minutes) than he has without either (three minutes). There are several complicating factors. Toronto went to jumbo lineups to match up with Philadelphia, whose perimeter size made life difficult for its smaller guards. The absence of OG Anunoby, who has been out the entire playoffs after undergoing an emergency appendectomy, left them without many reliable perimeter options. Gasol and Ibaka are two of the only players whom Nurse trusts, which makes it hard to bench both. Anunoby was active in Game 2 for the first time all postseason, but it would be a huge gamble to play him considering how long he has been out.
Adjust, play, repeat: Pascal Siakam’s 2019 NBA playoff run | Toronto Sun
There’s some irony in Siakam’s current situation as he’s having to adjust to Draymond Green and what he is doing to him defensively. It’s been over a year since DeMar DeRozan first mentioned Green as Siakam’s closest comparison in the league.
Since then Warriors coach Steve Kerr, and plenty of others, have come to the same conclusion.
Siakam, though, isn’t looking for a comparable or anyone to measure himself against.Earlier in the series, he made that very clear when he said he had no interest in being or becoming anyone else. He just wanted to be Pascal.
And that Pascal is getting better with each adjustment he makes.
Playoff game No. 21 tonight will be another opportunity to see something else new in Siakam, and to move the needle a little bit more.
Warriors, Raptors riveted by Nick Nurse’s ‘janky’ defensive strategy – Yahoo
More than anything else, it was the newness that caught the Warriors off guard. Curry last faced the box-and-one while he was at Davidson, while Kerr’s last encounter went all way back to the ninth grade in the 80’s. Nurse’s gambit was so far out of left field that even the Raptors were confused. On one possession, Marc Gasol had to physically drag Kawhi Leonard into position.
“Never practiced that ever. I don’t think I’ve ever run a box-and-one in my life, I’m going to be honest with you,” Lowry said.
Having said that, it is something of an opportunity wasted by the Raptors because the Warriors will certainly be more prepared for it over the remainder of the series. It’s not particularly difficult to scheme against a box-and-one when you know it’s coming, and without admitting to it, the Warriors have practiced counters.
One simple solution would be to set double screens on one side of the floor for Curry, as that would automatically put the defence at a numerical disadvantage. And when the Warriors’ big guns return, it will be totally impossible to sag that far off.
“Klay (Thompson) definitely wasn’t on the floor at that time. There’s no telling when KD’s (Kevin Durant) going to come back either, so I don’t think it will work,” Leonard said of the long-term viability of the box-and-one.
But it was never meant to be a permanent strategy. Nurse had the guts to throw the basketball equivalent of an eephus pitch, and the Warriors whiffed at it. That speaks to Nurse’s creativity, and to the trust that his players have in him to execute it at a moment’s notice in the midst of the NBA Finals.
“That’s just how he is,” Leonard said of Nurse. “He’s experimental, and a lot of what he draws up on the board works.”
How the Toronto Raptors used a middle school zone defense in the NBA Finals – SBNation.com
“It was crazy. The way they guarded me, I don’t know if anyone else in this league is getting guarded like they guarded me. It was like a box-and-one,” Walker said after the game, via Nets Daily. “I haven’t seen that since I was in college. It was crazy. I guess that’s what teams are going to do. I have to trust in my teammates to make plays.”
Still, that game didn’t carry nearly the weight of this one. It’s remarkable Toronto had this defense perfected in its back pocket.
As well as it worked in Game 2 though, it’s unlikely we’ll see this defense again for the length of time we did before (more than four minutes), if at all. It’s hard to see this working if Durant and/or Thompson are healthy enough to play.
But at the end of Game 2, the Warriors were certainly spooked by it. They weren’t prepared to be down this many contributors, and the box-and-one defense made their lives that much more difficult.
Kudos to the Raptors for nearly pulling an NBA Finals comeback off with grade school defense.
Grading Every Player so Far in Raptors-Warriors 2019 NBA Finals | Bleacher Report
Kawhi Leonard: B
Kawhi Leonard paces this series in minutes and rebounds, and he shares its scoring lead with Curry.
But this hasn’t quite been the soul-snatching stuff to which Raptors fans had grown accustomed. Entering the Finals, Leonard had been flirting with a 50/40/90 playoff shooting slash (50.7/38.8/87.5). Other than free throws, he’s nowhere close to those marks in this series (38.2 overall, 33.3 outside).
Granted, Golden State threw the kitchen sink at him in Game 1, so he probably did well to finish with 23 points on 14 shot attempts and five assists against two giveaways. But he couldn’t take advantage of receiving less attention in Game 2. No one should ever scoff at 34 points and 14 rebounds, but he did shoot just 40 percent from the field (22.2 from three) and have more turnovers (five) than assists (three).
There might be a medical reason behind these (relative) struggles.
“Kawhi Leonard has been battling a sore left knee since early in the conference finals,” Joe Vardon reported. “… Sources told The Athletic’s Sam Amick and me that Leonard’s knee issue stems from overcompensating for his injured right quad suffered last season.”
Toronto’s supporting cast has battled inconsistency all season, meaning Leonard might need to go superhuman to save this squad. But he can only do as much as his body will allow.
2019 NBA Finals Analysis: Where did the Toronto Raptors’ scoring go in Game 2? – Raptors HQ
Why the Drought?
So, where did all the scoring go?
Well, Pascal Siakam dropping off doesn’t help. After his 32 point night (on 17 shots), Pascal put up even more shots (18) but ended with only 12 points, a truly abysmal shooting night. He missed all his threes, and shot 5-of-15 inside the arc. Overall his scoring in Game 1 worked out to an individual scoring rate of 188 points per 100 used possessions. In Game 2, that dropped to 71 points per 100 used possessions. Somewhere Draymond Green is grinning.
In any case, that is mitigated somewhat by Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry rebounding from a poor Game 1 — combined, they scored 88 points per 100 used possessions as a pair. In Game 2 that jumped up to 112 points per 100 used possessions. That mostly washes out the effect of Siakam’s struggles.
Unfortunately, if the Raptors keep having these “well, that likely won’t happen again” nights from one of their stars, the offense will likely continue to struggle sometimes. And as we noted, that probably means a loss against the Warriors.
Still, that wasn’t actually the big difference between Games 1 and 2. Which means we return to a familiar refrain from these playoffs: will Toronto’s role players hit shots?
Because they didn’t in Game 2.
Fred VanVleet scored 17 points. He took 17 individual possessions to do so.
Danny Green? 8 points on 8 possessions.
Norman Powell: 7 points on 8 possessions.
Marc Gasol: 6 points on 9 possessions.
Serge Ibaka: 7 points on 4 possessions.
Only Ibaka managed a >100 individual ORTG on his used possessions, and he did so on such low volume that it didn’t matter. Overall the supporting case managed 45 points on 46 possessions, a 98 ORTG. That came on the back of a 6-for-19 night from three-point range for that group.
Can the Raptors break through against this depleted defense? – ESPN
Nobody was more disappointing than Pascal Siakam, the best player on the floor in Game 1 (14-of-17 shooting, 32 points). On Sunday, Siakam regressed to the mean in brutal fashion, shooting just 5-of-18 and scoring only 12 points. He shot an atrocious 1-of-11 outside of the restricted area and went scoreless from beyond the arc.
His struggles away from the rim were a microcosm of his team at large. In Toronto’s seven playoff losses, Siakam is shooting 6.3 percent on 2.3 uncontested 3s per game. He missed both such looks in Game 2. In his team’s 13 playoff wins, Siakam is converting 44.4 percent of his 1.5 open triples, per Second Spectrum. Siakam is the enigmatic bellwether of these Finals thus far, and his 1-of-7 performance in the third quarter set the dismal tone for his team in that key frame, which began with a defining 18-0 Warriors run that changed the tone of the series.
The weirdest part of an NBA game is the first few minutes of the third quarter. As the second half begins, much of the home crowd is still in the concourse getting drinks and hot dogs. Even Finals games can suddenly exhibit a lack of crowd energy in these moments. This is exactly when the Warriors stole the game, and when Toronto started flailing. The Raptors made just 14 of their 48 second-half shots, and Kawhi Leonard and Siakam combined to go 6-of-22.
Speaking of Leonard, both Thompson and Andre Iguodala have been terrific at slowing him down. Out of the 29 NBA players who have matched up against Leonard at least 50 times this season, Iggy and Klay rank Nos. 1 and 2 in suppressing Leonard’s individual scoring activity. But Iguodala was nursing an injury in his Achilles tendon area heading into Game 2, and now Thompson is questionable for Game 3 with a mild hamstring strain.
The hidden key to the 2019 NBA Finals? Kyle Lowry’s foul trouble – SBNation.com
Zoom out on his entire career and Lowry’s tango with foul trouble is nothing new. He played 71 fourth-quarter minutes during the 2015-16 postseason with at least four fouls, which led all players.
But the contrast this year has been especially stark. In 65 regular-season games, Lowry only fouled out once and finished with four or more fouls 16 times. In 20 playoff games, he’s fouled out twice and finished with more than four fouls 13 times. Put another way: over the past three regular seasons, Lowry has only played 13 fourth-quarter minutes with five fouls. In the playoffs that number is 18, second only to Draymond Green’s 23.
“It is tricky out there. We have been in some foul trouble in the playoffs a bit with certain guys,” Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said before Game 2 when I asked about Lowry’s predicament. “It’s strange because it doesn’t seem like you’re ever in foul trouble in the regular season.”
Warriors’ injuries represent different kinds of opportunities for Raptors and the NBA – The Athletic
Commissioner Adam Silver said in April that there was a fair amount of angst about the load management going on around the league — Leonard was at the centre of that discussion. He said the league would consider shortening the season. However, the NBA is not in the habit of surrendering revenue, nor would the players be crazy about accepting that, so the league would have to find a creative way to make that up.
These playoffs will only add fuel to that conversation. Injuries will always happen, as Andre Iguodala rightfully pointed out that the 1960s Celtics, who were “playing in Chuck Taylors and they didn’t have physical therapy,” were the last team to go to the Finals as many years in a row, and they still managed to win nine of 10 Finals in the decade. (Side note: Holy crap.)
However, as time marches on, science progresses, and we realize some of the mistakes we made in the past. In a year full of stars missing games, Durant played 78 of 82 in the regular season, as did Thompson. Siakam led the Raptors, along with Green, playing 80 games. Without more information, causation is impossible to assign.
“What’s the right answer? You make it a shorter season, somebody complains about that,” VanVleet said. “You make it longer, somebody complains about that. Who knows? It’s not up to us. I don’t think my voice matters anyway.”
The league will do its due diligence. If there is a better answer that does not cost them money, they will surely look into it. As we watch the Finals, with Iguodala limping and Leonard labouring and Durant in street clothes, there almost has to be a better answer. Everybody, except for maybe Raptors supporters, wants a mostly healthy Finals. And nobody wants to talk about asterisks.
VanVleet’s valuable two-way game a boon for Raptors in NBA Finals – Sportsnet.ca
That’s why VanVleet’s played so much — he’s been Toronto’s best defender on the opposition’s best scorer. Meanwhile, he’s chipped in double-digit point totals in each of those two games on 48 per cent (12-of-25) shooting, turning the ball over only three times despite being fourth on his team in usage and touches. As long as Leonard wears the same uniform as him, it’s going to be near impossible for VanVleet to ever be the best two-way player on his team. But through two games of the Finals, you can make a case he’s been the second-best.
“He’s working really hard on defense, too, guarding Curry,” Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said after Game 2. “He was running the team, he was making really quick decisions off the pick-and-roll. He had some good looks. He probably hadn’t played that many straight minutes in a while. I think he had a couple there late and he was probably a little tired, but he kept taking them and stepping into them. But 17 points from him is great and running the team the way he did is great.”
Midway through Game 2, when Nurse emerged from his laboratory like a guitar-playing Victor Frankestein with an idea to run a box-and-one defence, VanVleet’s number was the first he drew on his board. He’d have to blanket Curry like he was a defensive back chasing around a wide receiver. The rest of Toronto’s defenders would remain at their stations.
And when you’re asked to play a box-and-one defence, the and-one end of the equation is not the assignment you want from a workload perspective. Particularly when you’ve already played more than a half hour of basketball off the bench. But VanVleet took to the challenge, racing around the court in pursuit of Curry, who was doing everything he could to shake free.
Incredibly, it worked, as the Warriors went on a five-minute stretch without a basket against the creative look. Curry didn’t even make an attempt in the fourth quarter as VanVleet clung to his hip.
“Guarding Steph is not easy,” VanVleet said Tuesday, matter-of-factly. “Each play feels like its 24 seconds long because their guys are just moving and cutting and everybody’s in sync. They’re all moving in unison. So, it’s definitely tough to guard.”
And as the series wears on, and the Warriors accumulate more and more film of the way VanVleet’s guarding Curry, it’s not going to get any easier.
Raptors need to take advantage with Warriors banged up – TSN.ca
To a man, the Raptors insist that it’s business as usual for them. Their preparation and approach doesn’t change without knowing for sure who is going to be on the other side of the court. They’re worried about themselves.
“We all know they’re a great team regardless,” Pascal Siakam said. “We don’t look at that. I think for us it’s more about doing all the things we’re supposed to do in terms of a game plan and making sure we bring the intensity and energy that we need. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter who they have, we’ve gotta be able to have that same intensity against anybody that we play.”
That’s the right mindset to have, of course. Respect your opponent and “control what you can control,” as Fred VanVleet put it. Still, there’s no denying the impact Golden State’s injuries could have on the remainder of this series and the Raptors’ chances of winning their first ever NBA title.
With each game Durant misses, and with each game Thompson and several of his Warriors teammates play at less than full strength, Toronto’s window of opportunity widens.
The Warriors are vulnerable for the first time since they landed Durant, but they’re also not dead. What’s left of them?
Steph Curry is a superstar and a top-5 player in the NBA. He’s led them to a win in 32 of the last 34 games he’s played without Durant. Draymond Green is an all-star, one of the league’s best defenders and a triple-double machine. He might be having the best postseason run of his career. Iguodala is a former Finals MVP. He’s a winner and a big-shot maker, as he proved at the end of Game 2. Cousins isn’t what he was pre-injury, but he looked much better on Sunday than he did in the opener. He can still make his presence felt.
At or anywhere close to full strength, the Warriors are simply unfair, they’re that good. This iteration, banged up and without their best player, is still a championship-calibre team, and may end up being a championship-winning team, depending on how the rest of this goes. But, suddenly, things have gotten interesting.
How Kawhi Leonard’s Offensive Rebounding Could Tilt The NBA Finals – Uproxx
The Warriors are aware of Leonard’s danger on the offensive glass, but executing against him remains a difficult proposition. He’s great at pulling in contested boards and few perimeter players are as good at reading a shot in the air as Leonard to be in position for a longer rebound — 47.5 percent of his rebounds have come on shots from 19 feet and beyond, per NBA.com/stats.
With their depth issues in the frontcourt and on the wing, the Warriors have struggled to keep the Raptors off the offensive boards in this series. Toronto owns a 22-15 advantage in that category, and while their seven in Game 1 doesn’t seem like that many, it’s a lot when factoring in they only missed 38 shots.
The Warriors halfcourt defense settled in for Game 2 and made life extremely difficult on the Raptors, but the great equalizer can be their work on the glass. Golden State countered that with DeMarcus Cousins in Game 2, who had a huge presence on the boards in helping them take the lead in the third quarter and hold on down the stretch, but the man that is so tough to account for on that end is the Board Man: Leonard.
Steph Curry can be at his most dangerous right after a pass because the defense can lose track of him as he relocates for a catch-and-shoot opportunity. For Toronto, Leonard has a similar quality in diving to the rim for boards late in the game. Iguodala, Klay Thompson, and the rest of the Warriors wings have to stay aware of his positioning as a shot goes up, because of the subtle movement to create himself a path to the rim.
In a series where both defenses are so stout, the team that can give itself more second-chance opportunities and shot attempts is going to gain a significant advantage. Early on that’s been the Raptors and Golden State has to figure out how to keep them — and particularly Leonard — from those opportunities, especially in clutch situations where he’s had such a big impact this postseason.
Vulnerable Warriors are losing the injury lottery in NBA Finals | The Star
The Warriors seemed resigned to their health woes being a symptom of perennial title contention.
“We have been playing a hundred-plus games for five years now — not all of our players, but our team. So we have a lot of guys who have played long, difficult seasons,” Kerr said. “They take great care of themselves. But there’s a certain amount of luck involved with this, too, and we know that. We have been on both sides of that. Some of our opponents have suffered injuries. We have suffered injuries. It’s just part of the deal.”
It’s a part of the deal from which the Raptors might turn out to be beneficiaries.
“Usually the team that makes (the Finals) or wins it is the best team playing the best basketball, but also the healthiest team,” Danny Green, the Raptors starting shooting guard, said Tuesday. “They’ve been that team for the last four or five years now. It seems as if it might be catching up with them.”
Which is not to underestimate the Warriors. Last season, after all, Thompson played with a high ankle sprain that he classed as worse than what he’s currently nursing.
“(Getting injured is) the most unfortunate part of sports, but it tests your character,” Thompson said. “And playing through pain makes it all worth it in the end, especially this time of the year. I don’t think anyone is a hundred per cent healthy on both teams.”
That the Raptors are closer to 100 per cent than the Warriors might be the factor that determines the series from here.
“It sucks that they have so many guys out and injured. Obviously we want to play against a 100-per-cent healthy team,” said Danny Green. “Hopefully all those guys are playing. It would be nice to compete against them. That’s what we love to do. We’d love to continue the challenge of playing against their best guys.”
We have little doubt Green was expressing a sentiment that was as sincere as it was sportsmanlike. And we couldn’t disagree more. Whether by sports science or by chance, you take your edges as they come. Depending on how Thompson wakes up and Durant continues to progress, the ongoing prognoses of Golden State’s pair of hobbled all-stars could do more to tip this series than anything either team does on the floor. The Oracle’s daunting, but the medical favours the road team. Past is past. But there’s no time like the present to seize an opportunity — and, touch wood, stay healthy.
B/R NBA Experts Give Their Best Anthony Davis Trade Offers | Bleacher Report
Toronto Raptors Receive: Anthony Davis, E’Twaun Moore, 2019 second (via DEN), 2020 second (via MIL)
Pelicans Receive: Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, Norman Powell, Serge Ibaka, 2020 first (TOR)*
The Toronto Raptors are a dark-horse contender in the arms race to acquire Davis and probably won’t involve themselves at all. They are knotted up at one game apiece in the NBA Finals and Kevin Durant is out for Game 3 and possibly longer, so they have a legitimate chance to win the series. However, should the Raptors fall just shy, reinforcing their lineup with the addition of Davis could ensure Kawhi Leonard’s return and ultimately carry them across the championship threshold.
It would be a calculated risk to move on from Pascal Siakam for potentially just one year of AD. Leonard may seek heavenly pastures in the City of Angels anyway, so it probably makes more sense for the Raptors to send out the expiring contracts of Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka and build from scratch around Siakam.
But we’ve seen Masai Ujiri play with fire before.
If Leonard stays and the Raptors execute this trade for Davis, they would trot out an opening day lineup of Kyle Lowry, Danny Green, Leonard, Davis and Marc Gasol with Fred VanVleet and E’Twaun Moore off the bench to add some shooting. Including Moore in the deal gives them some cap relief over Norman Powell, who still has three years and $32.6 million remaining on his deal. They’ll need any wiggle room they can get to re-sign Danny Green and round out their roster.
The prize of this package is Siakam, but OG Anunoby and Powell give the Pelicans solid depth on the wing where they have struggled to find contributors, Ibaka gives the Pelicans a win-now center to play alongside Zion, and the Pelicans even walk away with future first-round capital.
*Raptors’ 2020 draft pick can’t be traded until after the 2019 draft.
Kawhi Leonard’s MJ-like play carrying Raptors | NBC Sports Philadelphia
Leonard has a rightful claim to the throne of the game’s best. Let’s run through the reasons. As mentioned above, Leonard leads all players in playoff player-efficiency rating (PER) this postseason. If PER isn’t your thing, consider that the Raptors are plus-140 with Leonard on the floor and minus-40 when he’s on the bench.
His enormous impact stems from his ridiculous shot efficiency. Leonard is averaging 31.2 points this postseason and he’s posted an effective field-goal percentage (which accounts for the added value of 3-pointers) of 64.4 percent in 10 games. That’s an absurd number. In the history of the game, 177 players have averaged at least 25 points per game in a postseason, but none with Leonard’s level of efficiency, per Basketball-Reference.com.
It’s fair to point out that 10 games isn’t exactly a large sample size. Fine, let’s just look at the peak 10-game stretches for elite scorers. Some perimeter players have averaged more points and some have posted higher efficiencies. But never both at the same time like Leonard’s 31.2 points and 64.4 percent eFG%.
LeBron James’ peak in a 10-game playoff span came in 2017 when he reached 63.7 percent eFG% while averaging 32.8 points per game. Kevin Durant’s most efficient stretch culminated at the end of the 2017 NBA Finals when he had posted a 64.6-percent mark and scored 30.6 points per game over that time.
Going back further, Kobe Bryant’s 10-game peak came in 2010 when he topped out at 57.1 percent. Jordan’s was 55.6 back in 1990. They have posted higher scoring averages than Leonard, but both needed a bunch of extra shots (and misses) to get there. Sure, this is the era of hyper-tuned efficiency, but Leonard’s current eFG% of 64.4 percent far out-paces the league average of 50.9 percent.
Stephen Curry has bested Leonard’s current eFG% mark before. That came back in 2017 when he registered a 66.6 percent effective field-goal percentage in his previous 10 games, but he averaged 28.9 points per game over that stretch, not quite up to Leonard’s current benchmark.
But Curry isn’t on Leonard’s level when it comes to defensive prowess, and that’s really where Leonard separates himself.
There’s no way the Raptors get this far without DeMar | The Star
It’s the subtext for all of this. DeRozan wasn’t going to hit the shots Kawhi has hit, or lock up Jimmy Butler or Giannis Antetokounmpo. If and when Kevin Durant returns from his strained calf in this series, Kawhi will be the weapon to counter him. He might be unleashed on Steph Curry in late-game situations. Kawhi, as a player, is giving everything to the Raptors while he’s here.
But DeMar had to max himself out to make that happen. DeRozan stubbornly improved in his own way every year, learning to pass, to create, polishing his Kobe-like offensive footwork. His defence remained a hunting ground, his three-point shooting an aspiration, but he rose up high enough to warrant a second-team all-NBA nod in 2018, finishing a distant eighth in the MVP voting.
And that was enough. San Antonio’s relationship with Kawhi had disintegrated after their disagreement over how to deal with his quadriceps injury; the Raptors had reached the end of the rope after being swept by Cleveland for a second consecutive year. The Raptors cast about for DeRozan trades that included deals that would have resulted in future value only. But the Spurs didn’t want to rebuild in coach Gregg Popovich’s later years, and engaged on DeMar.
So the Raptors are in Oakland. There was a thought after the Milwaukee series that DeRozan might make the trip for one of the games here, to see Kyle and the other teammates he has kept in touch with, encouraged and roots for. He won’t. But he’s happy for them.
“He texted me after the conference final. That’s my guy, man,” says Raptors centre Serge Ibaka. “You know some people they say they’re happy for you, but you could tell, he was really happy. Some people say they’re happy just for the camera, you know what I’m saying? They’re happy for the camera. He was really happy. He texted me, and I’m not the only one. That’s our guy, man.”
“He’s really excited,” said Lowry. “He’s really happy for us. I mean, I talked to him this morning.”
Phew!
Now, if you’ve been a Raptors fan long enough, the idea of a lawsuit being filed in the middle of a playoff series may seem familiar. It was 19 years ago that Butch Carter, then the Raptors coach, filed a $5 million lawsuit against New York Knicks centre Marcus Camby for comments Camby made, calling Carter a liar among other things.
Camby, of course, was a former Raptor. And the Raptors and Knicks were playing each other in a playoff series at the time. It’s very nearly unbelievable but I assure you, this actually happened.
So, while the Raptors would surely have preferred Leonard’s lawsuit wait until after the Finals, it’s hardly as much of a distraction as that Carter-Camby clusterf–k was.
Meanwhile, you may have heard some other news yesterday, regarding Leonard and some real estate transactions going on about town. Has Kawhi Leonard purchased a new Toronto home?
NBA Finals: Questions Toronto now must answer in Game 3 – Yahoo
Which defense will Kawhi Leonard see in Game 3?
The Warriors blitzed Leonard in the pick and roll in Game 1, limiting his effectiveness (5-of-14 FG) but opening up the floor for the likes of Pascal Siakam, Marc Gasol, Danny Green and Fred Van Vleet (29-of-44 FG). We wondered here after the series opener if Golden State coach Steve Kerr would be forced to leave his defenders on an island against Leonard and generate help on everyone else.
The Warriors did just that, and did so creatively. Andre Iguodala still served as the primary defender against Leonard in Game 2, but the Warriors also doubled former Defensive Player of the Year Draymond Green’s time on Kawhi and gave him a heavy dose of All-Defensive guard Klay Thompson, which in turn allowed Iguodala and Green — two brilliant decision-makers — to serve as help defenders in space.
The wide array of looks the Warriors offered Leonard may have helped create some confusion in a pivotal Game 2 victory, but Kawhi has now seen just about anything Golden State can send his way. He did get to the free-throw line 16 times and score 34 points in defeat, and he is smart and skilled enough to attack whatever the defense gives him, especially now that he should easily recognize both schemes.
This latest strategy led to fewer rotational mistakes, because the Warriors weren’t scrambling as much to recover from the double team (Leonard had five secondary assists in Game 1 and none in Game 2). Still, Toronto left seven potential Leonard assists on the table, per Synergy Sports, and Golden State may feel worse about that plan if the Raptors didn’t shoot 14-of-43 (9-of-31 3-pointers) on open or wide-open looks.
First, to discombobulate Toronto, Golden State changed up their defensive matchups to open the quarter — putting Draymond Green on Kyle Lowry, moving Andre Iguodala to Pascal Siakam, and Klay Thompson on Kawhi Leonard. The first change really opened up Green’s ability to switch and rove, which left the Raptors slowly hunting matchups and eating up clock. This resulted in a few haggard offensive possessions — the Kawhi miss below, a Danny Green turnover, and a Kawhi missed two.
Coming out of a subsequent timeout, the Raptors failed to turn momentum, as Marc Gasol was called for an illegal screen and Kyle Lowry had a lost ball turnover. Five empty possessions is enough to elevate Golden State, which is exactly what they did.
On offence, the Warriors finally unlocked a useful centre matchup by using back cuts to utilize Cousins’ court vision. On these two plays, Kawhi Leonard — who had a poor quarter for defensive awareness by his standards — loses an assignment in transition defence, while Cousins makes the pass for the basket.
Leonard earned his work back on the other end at the end of the quarter, baiting the Warriors into fouls and working the free throw line in a bonus situation. Still, the Raptors couldn’t quite get enough going to get back into the game until the final minute.
Like Steve Kerr before him, Nick Nurse gaining admirers under Finals spotlight – Sportsnet.ca
“Everybody’s on pins and needles because you don’t know what Kawhi is going to do,” said Basketball Hall of Fame journalist David Aldridge. “If he leaves, whose fault was it? It’s hard to take that job and [Nurse has] taken the bull by the horns.”
Nurse impressed observers along the way, drawing praise for his ability to make adjustments.
“I’ve watched Nick closely,” said Rick Carlisle, longtime head coach of the Dallas Mavericks. “I love the way he’s approached the entire season. They have set up the entire season to work to get to this point and for a first-time NBA head coach, that’s not easy to do.”
Managing people — many with big egos — is arguably the most important task of a head coach at this stage of professional basketball. Nurse, like Kerr, is known for that. Neither is overbearing or excessively demonstrative. And the two are expert communicators, their traits on display every time they meet with media and evident in the fine print of player discourse.
“I think Nick honestly yelled at us twice the whole year,” Raptors guard Kyle Lowry said recently. “That’s legit: twice the whole year. And that’s a long season to only yell at a team twice.”
The obvious area where Nurse and Kerr differ, though, is profile. Kerr played for one of the greatest teams in league history and now coaches its modern day equivalent. His star status was evident Sunday when legendary head coach Frank Layden, the 2019 Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award winner, was asked his impressions of Kerr.
“I always judge coaches by: ‘Would I want my son to play for that coach or would I want my daughter to play for that coach?’” answered Layden. “And if the answer is ‘Yes,’ then they’re a good coach. And I think that that’s what I could say about Steve Kerr … He seems to be a gentleman. He handles winning well when a lot of people don’t.”
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