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TORONTO – There was once in this series a recurring question about the two defending champions and their embarrassment of riches: do they really need Kevin Durant, who rehabilitates a wounded calf, to win another Title?
Still, in the second game of the NBA Finals on Sunday, the team would have felt lucky if Durant had been the only player to stay away from a problem. Stephen Curry's shot was off early in the evening and he returned to the locker room very early after feeling seemingly dizzy and dehydrated. Kevon Looney, the best center of the team in the last two rounds, was forced to leave in the first half with a bruise on his chest. Former Senior Finals player Andre Iguodala had a frightening moment and lay down for almost a minute in the second quarter. And more interesting to watch for: Klay Thompson – whose fast-paced jump shot kept the team afloat in the first half – hamstring injury that forced him outside with eight minutes remaining.
Still, the Warriors overcame a halftime deficit with one of their patented revolutionary races, won an attrition war and survived the Raptors' return in the last five minutes to avoid a treacherous 2-0 hole. Instead, the series only takes place in the final, while the final moves to Oakland for the third and fourth games.
Behind 59-54 halfway through the match, Golden State in the third period embarked on another of those invincible stretches of Mario Star, where it almost seems like the only team allowed to score. They made a leap in scoring 18 points in the quarter before Toronto came on the board. And although huge series of points like these are often fueled by the fierce fire of Thompson and Curry (or Durant), it was much more equitable.
All the baskets marked by the warriors during this race were assisted. More broadly, all 22 Golden State buckets have in the whole second half According to Elias Sports Bureau, they are the second team in Finals history to attend each basket in half a game. Several were back lobs, a clear sign that the Warriors were taking advantage of the Raptors to pay too much defensive attention to Golden State's soft shooting guards.
The Raptors lost up to 13 points, but managed to make things interesting in the final minutes. Shortly after Thompson lost a little over eight minutes of play, the Raptors began using a very little used defensive ploy, called Box-and-One, to punish perceived misconduct.
"I felt good because we stopped their score," said Raptors coach Nick Nurse. "We finally found something to slow them down."
Although the plan may not work in the future, the maneuver surprised Curry and the Warriors by surprise, with no other star to lighten the load. They spent five and a half minutes without scoring, while Toronto reduced their deficit by 12 points to just two points. And if it was not until 10 seconds before the end of the match for Shaun Livingston – a Kawhi almost intercepted after Curry launched a dangerous pass to escape a trap – we could easily have watched a draw. Livingston secured the ball, surprising Raptors striker Pascal Siakam, who was leading in the opposite direction, anticipating acceleration. The haste of Siakam left Iguodala alone and Iggy had him count.
The shot would not have been great for anyone, but it was particularly nice for Iguodala: before Sunday, he had not scored a triple since the sixth game of the semifinal series of the conference against the Rockets.
Regarding this Houston series, this game looked in some respects in the last phases of the Rockets-Warriors match in the sense that Toronto – like Houston – seemed to be spoiling golden opportunities. Thompson ignited early, but the Raptors limited Curry to the vast majority of the first half as he missed his first six shots. Curry did not get his first basket before four minutes before half-time. (Klay was fantastic in the first half of Game 6 against Houston, holding the fort for a scoreless first half from Curry, who scored 33 points in the second half.) And Thompson's late injury gave Toronto a window for to defend oneself in a much more aggressive way. , just as Durant's injury was designed to give the Rockets a better chance to move forward.
It can be said that it was a missed opportunity for Toronto (aside from their breakthrough at half-time, the Raptors had given nothing to three possessions in a row in the last four minutes of play, despite open eyes). But the Warriors also deserve credit for finding a way to keep up. A number of important factors marked their victory.
The defensive changes – like removing Draymond Green from Pascal Siakam and putting him against Kyle Lowry instead, allowing Green to walk around as a defender of disruptive help – were sometimes of great mastery. Siakam played in the first match, but did not do so much against Iguodala. And Thompson defended Kawhi, who still saw many defenders on his face, but was not as harassed as in his first game. The Warriors restored their pressure in the hope of making the Toronto players less visible, and the decision paid off. (Leonard still had 34 points, but he had only three assists on Sunday, a significant drop from the seven cents per game he had averaged on his previous three outings.)
And DeMarcus Cousins, whose injury return probably attracted far less attention because of Durant, had a big impact in his second game in return. He scored 11 points, 10 tables and six assists in just 28 minutes, while recording a total of +12.
Of course, there is still a lot to marvel about for this club – especially if Thompson is disabled and can not play in the third game, and if Durant is in another game or two before coming back. Without Thompson and Durant, Toronto could continue to use a defensive strategy once unthinkable against Curry and his teammates.
But no matter how much Golden State could be shorthanded in Wednesday's third game, the fact that the Warriors found a way to get the second game – despite everything that seemed to go awry – probably gave all the confidence they needed to take this series and keep the title.
Check out our predictions for the NBA playoffs.
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