The Toronto Raptors are headed to the Eastern Conference Finals to take on the Bucks, opening the series on the road in Milwaukee on Wednesday night.
To get there, the Raptors needed some late-game heroics from their superstar after the Sixers tied the game up on a Jimmy Butler layup. Kawhi Leonard, who missed a free throw to provide the opening for Philly to tie it, caught the ball going to the far right corner and rose over Joel Embiid for the game-winning attempt. After the ball bounced around on the rim for what seemed like forever, it dropped, sending the Sixers to the conference finals and avenging the pain of Vince Carter’s miss in a nearly exact same situation in 2001 against Philly.
While Kevin Harlan and Greg Anthony delivered a great call live, Trevor Sikkema had the brilliant foresight to set Leonard’s game-winner to Verne Lundquist’s iconic call of Tiger Woods’ Masters chip-in in 2005 of “In your life!” The result is spectacular.
I put the video of Kawhi's shot to the audio of Vern calling Tiger's iconic chip in at the Masters in 2005 bc that's honestly the first thing I thought when I saw that shot drop pic.twitter.com/XU7y0mq0uI
— Trevor Sikkema (@TampaBayTre) May 13, 2019
It’s a nearly perfect fit despite being a call from almost 15 years ago in a completely different sport. Leonard’s shot will go down as arguably the biggest moment in Raptors history — for now — and it deserves this kind of iconic call.
