The Toronto Raptors blew a golden opportunity at winning their first NBA title in Game 5 of the Finals. That is an inarguable fact. The Raptors were up six points with 3:28 remaining in the fourth quarter after a 10-2 Kawhi Leonard run, and it appeared the Warriors were on their last legs.
It has to be brutal to know that the Larry O’Brien trophy was in the building, and that Toronto was just a few minutes away from getting to hold it. But just because the Raptors squandered one opportunity to end this series doesn’t mean they are in real danger of surrendering a 3-1 lead and becoming the new butt of every joke in the NBA. Toronto is still the favorite to win the championship.
Consider everything that had to go wrong for the Raptors to lose in Game 5.
Golden State hit 20 3-pointers – including seven in the first quarter – to build an early lead, something they hadn’t yet done in the previous two games at Scotiabank Arena. DeMarcus Cousins, who looked borderline unplayable in the games in Oakland, was still out of sorts defensively but spearheaded a 9-0 run after Kevin Durant’s injury with seven points and an assist to Draymond Green.
Toronto made 8-of-32 3-pointers despite being a 34 percent three-point shooting team throughout the playoffs and even better during the regular season. That included an o-fer from distance for Danny Green, his first such outing since a disastrous Eastern Conference Finals. Fred VanVleet, the closest thing the Raptors have to a Stephen Curry stopper, lost his mind in the first half and fouled Curry not once, but twice on three-point attempts. VanVleet’s foul trouble limited him to less than ten minutes in the first half, and he was still minus-15 in that stretch.
All that, and Toronto still had the ball down one with 15.7 seconds left. The Raptors didn’t get the job done then, but they will in Game 6.
Oracle Arena hasn’t been intimidating at all for Toronto this season. The Raptors blew out the Warriors in their lone regular-season meeting in Oakland, even without Kawhi Leonard, and comfortably won games 3 and 4 on the back of their superstar. Leonard had a now-famous parting speech inspiring his team to win both of those road games after losing game 2 and presumably will have similar motivation this time around with everyone in Toronto hoping to avoid a Game 7.
Leonard will be better in Game 6 after shooting 9-0f-24 in the Game 5 loss, mostly because he won’t have to start the game chasing Durant around. Therein lies the most compelling reason for why the Warriors won’t get another win in this series.
It’s difficult to overstate Durant’s impact on the team’s win, even if he only played 12 minutes. His presence as a shooter in the first quarter opened up the floor for Curry and Thompson, allowing the two of them to get in a rhythm for the rest of the game. The Warriors will be hard-pressed to simply recreate the 11 points he scored – is Alfonzo McKinnie or Jonas Jerebko supposed to get hot?
Durant’s absence on defense will be arguably more important. Golden State finally looked like itself on defense by starting the death lineup and being able to switch everything. It was the first time Toronto looked out of sorts on offense in this series, but it will be difficult for the Warriors to replicate that effort when they are forced to start a conventional center, particularly if Kevon Looney continues to be limited by his own injury. Pascal Siakam was also thrown off by Durant’s length, resulting in his most muted performance of the Finals.
It would have felt incongruous to celebrate the crowning achievement of the NBA season on the same night as watching one of the league’s best players and biggest stars suffer a devastating injury. From a purely basketball perspective, the Raptors should regret how they finished Game 5, but it wouldn’t have been right to end the Finals after that moment.
Golden State has responded admirably in its two wins, taking control of each game after watching two of it best players leave for injury (Thompson in Game 2 and Durant in Game 5). But on balance, the Raptors have been the better team. They have shot more efficiently from the floor and, despite the Warriors’ occasional outbursts, from three. They have been the better rebounding team, have turned the ball over less frequently, and gotten to the free-throw line more regularly.
The addition of Kevin Durant temporarily tipped the scales in the Warriors’ favor, but that is a card Golden State no longer has to play. Toronto has responded to adversity throughout this postseason, and they’ll respond accordingly again.
