NBA Finals Game 1 Golden State Warriors vs Toronto Raptors
Toronto--The Toronto Raptors have been ready to start these finals since the final buzzer sounded after Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The city of Toronto was jumping in rejoice all night. Finally, after years of frustrations, abysmal teams, dysfunctional front offices, and barely filling the arena, they finally reach the NBA Finals. But let's be clear about something, they aren't just happy to be there, they have the main goal in mind- win the Larry O'Brien trophy.
Starting tonight, they are three wins away from obtaining that goal with a 118-109 win over the Golden State Warriors, at the Scotiabank Arena on Thursday night. Pascal Siakam led the way with a playoff career-high 32 points on an efficient 14 for 17 from the field and Kawhi Leonard added 23 points along with other key contributions from the lineup. Marc Gasol had 20 points, Fred Van Vleet keeping up with his timely shooting adding 15 points, and Danny Green finally looked like himself with 11 points on 3-7 from three-point territory. Golden State, on the other hand, was not ready to play following the long layoff after the sweep of Portland in the Western Conference Finals. Stephen Curry had 34 points and Klay Thompson scored 21 points as that was not enough to withstand the Raptors intensity. Golden State had 16 turnovers that led to seventeen Raptors points. Demarcus Cousins was active tonight for the first time since his injury in the First round against the Clippers, and he was just a non-factor tonight. Adding insult to injury, defensive-minded Andre Iguodala might have aggravated his hamstring injury and that could derail his availability for the rest of the series which could be key. Golden State cannot afford to have any more injuries to key players since they already missing 2x Finals MVP Kevin Durant.