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<p class = "canvas-atom canvas-text Mb (1.0em) Mb (0) – sm Mt (0.8em) – sm" type = "text" content = "" The guys did a great job in finding a way Lowry said, "Playing goals and making big shots, and we were really good in defense." So after leaving Milwaukee 2-0 down, only 7.1% of the teams were defeated, data-reactid = "16"> "The guys did a great job in finding a way and getting by," Lowry said. We played and got big shots, and we were really good in defense. "So, after leaving Milwaukee 2-0 behind, a deficit just 7.1% of teams overcame, the Raptors escaped the third match with a win.
Before the competition, Raptors coach Nick Nurse was stunned at odds.
Raptors center Serge Ibaka only played 14 minutes Sunday night, but he also made a major contribution. (Frank Gunn / The Canadian Press via AP)
"It can not be right. It can not be right. Check the numbers, "he said. When the numbers did not allow him to paint a picture of a better future, Nurse turned to the anecdote. "How to find solace? I find comfort when OKC was defeated by 34 and 24 and sank 2-0, then won four straight games against a very, very good team from San Antonio. "
The Raptors striker, Serge Ibaka, defender of the Thunder race in 2012, only played 14 minutes Sunday night – a nurse having chosen to dance with the starters who had brought him – but in the locker room, the 10-year veteran let hope the almost desperate.
After the second match, he entered the locker room of the Fiserv Forum and found a team that seemed too aware of the chances. "The energy was really down. Everyone was down, "he recalls. "We were supposed to win the first game and we did not win the first one, and then in the second game they were 26-28."
"It's as if …," said Ibaka, remembering both times he faced a 2-0 deficit. But who better to find solace in this familiar despair than the 7% who walk, one of the few men to know – really, really – that the ink did not dry in their stories. "I felt we needed to hear something that gives us the conviction, to know that it's not late, it's not over yet," he said.
So he told his teammates a long story, which was played after four consecutive victories that led the Thunder to the finals. Most of the time, he just told them what he felt like a fall, as if you were facing an impossible enemy who would not stop hitting impossible shots and kick your ass all over the field.
"Me and Danny [Green] were playing on the Spurs, so we really did not like that, "joked Leonard after the match. The point, in a strange way, is that all three know that this can be done. They saw it. When the odds seem insurmountable, know that they are not halfway through the battle. Maybe it's easier to do the impossible twice. Maybe the first crack is what gets you armed with resilience, inner strength – hope, really – to do it again.
"When something like that happens, it's you against the world," Ibaka said. "All you have to do is stay together and give everything. Guys did it tonight. "
In overtime, Danny Green came out of a screen and broke through a three-pointer corner, relieving the tension at the Scotiabank Arena. They were his only points of the night. Leonard somehow won a ball jumped against Giannis. Gasol, wind force with nine minutes to play in regulation time, played 19 others at fault, scoring five points in the last five minutes.
Ibaka also explained how the climb seemed impossible to master until it was not, and that mental fatigue accelerated after the second win in a row.
"Now we are back. You regain your trust, "he applauded, shaken by nostalgia and excitement. "Let's push for the third now. Boom. Oh sh–. We won the third. Now we press them.
But let's go back for a second. Momentum had something to do with the return of the Thunder, but the young legs were not hurting him, and three-fifths of the Raptors' starting lineup are upside down. The second victory, he said, was the most difficult. Raptors will only have 46 hours to recover.
They survived. But how long can they last? Just do not tell them the odds.
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