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That's why, of course, they were not about to raise new expectations. Just a bigger height from which to fall if it does not go their way.
"I think we have a sense of urgency, period," said Kyle Lowry of Toronto. "No matter the situation. We want to be first at four, and every game is an urgent match … They always have professional basketball players there.
Speaking professionally, many questions to the Raptors on Tuesday insisted on the defense's novelty coach, Nick Nurse, who was only deployed briefly in the fourth quarter on Sunday. The box-and-1 – a zone defense built from four players, the fifth being assigned to chase the opponent's greatest threat score, in this case Stephen Curry – is more likely to be seen in university or high school competition.
The comments from both sides on the day off were going to congratulate Nurse for having the courage to try the box-and-1, to give in to a strategy that does not seem worthy of the NBA, do not NBA Finals quality.
Golden State coach Steve Kerr briefly acknowledged that the tactic had achieved his goal, but he had bursts of laughter when talking about tackling him as a ninth-grade player.
Nurse explained her decision, which at least showed a willingness to innovate as needed and think outside the box.
"We had trouble putting our defense in place," he said, "we had a bit of trouble with the basket, we had problems with the pace of play there.
"We have played in certain areas during the regular season, and generally when the game is funky and there is a bad pace, you may be able to change it simply by slowing down or stopping some of their cuts. It seemed to better protect the edge and prevent some of the cut. And that was good. I do not know, I was just trying to find something to stop them. "
When Kawhi Leonard was asked when he thought this strategy might work on future segments, he launched a "probably not".
"Klay was definitely not on the ground at that time," said Leonard. "We do not know when KD will come back either, so I do not think it'll work."
Lowry said, "Sometimes when your trainer prepares something, you get out a little bit."
The Warriors remained stuck on 106 points for five minutes late in the game, until Andre Iguodala 3-pointer with 5.9 seconds remaining, and Curry was unusually inefficient in the fourth quarter.
This – and the memory of the monstrous drought before and after half-time (24-1) – many Raptors were more concerned about their team's offensive than their defense. They scored 14 points lower in the second game, a drop due to a bad shot, an insufficient number of transition baskets and a reluctance in some cases to take shots that arose, narrowing immediately.
"Our defense has been pretty solid for most of the year," said veteran guard Danny Green. "This is not the problem for us. For us, it's an offense. The reason our defense has been in a lull is because the attack was bad in terms of turning the ball or bad shot, which does not allow the defense to prepare. "
Lowry had a draw against the second game and sank until the fourth quarter. Fred VanVleet was a force out of the Toronto bench, his report being written by Nurse in response.
Green, familiar with The finals Since arriving in San Antonio, he thinks he can do better than his 44% shots and 9.5 points per game. He almost needs to do it, because that's the one Kerr used Curry, allowing his precious leader to face some defenses.
Can the Raptors force Curry to work harder for this?
"We did a decent job," Green said. "We could obviously do better. I think the key is to keep chasing him and try to keep him out of free throws. He has a ton of free throws [22 of 23 so far] that we should not allow him to get. Play it without fouling it.
"But on our offensive side, we could probably do a better job."
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Steve Aschburner has written on the NBA since 1980. You can send him an email here, find his archives here and follow him on Twitter.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.
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