A championship run for Chris Paul won’t merely impact his own individual legacy—it will add to Kyle Lowry’s, too, and any small guard subject to the fires of archaic narrative.
Nick and Barry take a break from celebrating the greatest time in their lives and sit down to discuss how they feel. On this CHAMPIONSHIP episode of Talking Raptors the guys try to make sense of this beautiful reality that we now all live in as champions of the world.
June 15, 2014 — Kawhi Leonard sat at the podium donning an ill-fitted hat, his shirt soaked in champagne, and flanked by the flashiest of podium partners. “I didn’t think at all that I was about to win MVP of the Finals,” he said, sitting beside the Bill Russell award. Leonard, then a quiet 22-year-old…
There were moments in Thursday night’s game 6 where it felt a lot like the previous game, back home in Toronto. The Raptors had surrendered a lead after controlling the early parts of the game, Kawhi Leonard hadn’t fully established himself, and the Raptors just kept having opportunities to take control, and not quite getting…
TOR Raptors 114 Final Box Score 110 GS Warriors A+ P. Siakam46 MIN, 26 PTS, 10 REB, 3 AST, 1 STL, 10-17 FG, 3-6 3FG, 3-4 FT, 1 BLK, 2 TO, 2 +/- Nurse benching him for the last nine minutes of Game 5 gave Siakam the kick up the backside he needed. Spicy P…
Monday night sucked. The result sucked, Kevin Durant’s injury sucked, the crowd’s reaction sucked, the lack of energy from then on out sucked, and the late game choke job most definitely sucked. Over the past two days, everyone is keenly aware of the totality of suckage that occured during Game 5. It’s hard to zoom…
Narratives are, by design, fairly linear. They allow latecomers and distant observers to walk away feeling a sense of understanding about nuanced subjects. Game 5 of the NBA Finals was one of the strangest games of basketball I’ve ever seen played and it didn’t allow a single person to walk away with a clean-cut narrative…
At least Vince hit the rim. Time to block out the internet and the world till 9pm on Thursday.
May 7, 2018 — DeMar DeRozan walked down the hallway dejected, jersey slung over his shoulder. The Toronto Raptors were down 97-72 to the Cleveland Cavaliers and their top scorer had been ejected for a flagrant foul borne of out of frustration. There was another quarter to be played, but the result was inevitable. Another…
He feigned a pass to the wing, catching his defender flat-footed as he viciously cut back onto his right hand. Blood was in the water. As his defender helplessly backpedalled to recover, he flummoxed them once more with an equally abrupt behind-the-back dribble. Then, he pirouetted backwards, bang, one-two step, like a tap dancer nailing…