How the Raptors advanced to NBA Finals (and will push Warriors to brink)

The Gambler 

In a league obsessed with future assets and draft capital, front offices sometimes forget championship windows tend to close as quickly as they open.  Ujiri certainly didn’t forget that. In fact, in less than 12 months, Ujiri scrapped the entire identity of the 2015-18 Raptors era for a shot at a title this season. First, he jettisoned head coach Dwane Casey mere weeks before he was named the 2017-18 NBA Coach of the Year. Then he traded the franchise’s best and most popular player (DeMar DeRozan) for Kawhi Leonard, a disgruntled superstar in the final year of his contract, who had let it be known that he intended to sign with an LA team in the summer of 2019. Finally, in February, he traded three valuable bench players for Marc Gasol, a rapidly aging, former All-Star big man with a hefty player option this summer.

Ujiri didn’t half-commit to contending this season, he went ALL-IN on contending this season. And guess what? It worked! Even if Kawhi bolts for LA this summer and Gasol opts-in to his $25.6 million player option, Ujiri’s gamble got Toronto a legitimate shot at a title -– something it never would have done had it not made all of those bold moves the past 12 months. And that includes his decision to promote a guy with no NBA head coaching experience.

The Brains

Strange but true: If the Raptors win the title, Nick Nurse will become the third Finals head coach in recent seasons to win the championship in his first season as a coach (Steve Kerr did it in 2015, Ty Lue did it in 2016). Kerr had the vision to unleash Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green before the rest of the NBA realized where basketball was going. Lue had the temperament  needed to manage superstar personalities LeBron James and Kyrie Irving. What does Nurse have that sets him apart?

Well, put simply, Nurse is a brilliant coach. He has had to grind from Day 1 to get where he’s at today. In fact, his 30-year journey to become an NBA head coach took him from college to the British Basketball League to the D-League and to the Raptors’ bench before he finally became the head coach. He was at the forefront of the analytics-based offensive revolution as coach of the Rockets’ D-League affiliate Rio Grande Valley from 2011-2013 and as architect behind the 2017-18 Raptors’ second-best offensive rating. 

This season, despite not having Leonard for 22 games of “load management,” Nurse guided the Raptors to the fifth-best offensive rating and fifth-best defensive rating. If the Raptors upset the Warriors in the Finals, it’ll be due, in no small part, to Nurse’s game plan and adjustments. It’ll also mean that Leonard asserted his status as “best player in the league.”

The best player in the league

According to Michael Lee of The Athletic, upon arriving in Toronto this summer, Leonard asked Ujiri why he traded for him. Ujiri promptly responded, “Because you’re the best player in the league.” Leonard has Ujiri looking like a prophet as his post-season performance has been the stuff of legends. In the playoffs, he’s averaging 31 points, nine rebounds, four assists, two steals and a block. His shooting splits are 51-39-88.  He won a Game 7 with a buzzer-beating fade-away and has swung the tide in several closely contested games with clutch shots and plays.

Interestingly, sometimes lost in Kawhi’s incredible offensive prowess is the fact that he’s still the NBA’s best defender. The series against Milwaukee turned when the Raptors made Kawhi the primary defender on Giannis. Before that switch, Giannis was averaging 27 points and 12 free throw attempts per game on 51-percent shooting in the playoffs. After the switch, Giannis only scored 20.5 points and attempted nine free throws per game on 43.5-percent shooting. Moreover, before Game 6, ESPN's Kirk Goldsberry tweeted that the Bucks averaged 113.5 points per 100 possessions during the season, but when Kawhi guarded Giannis in the ECF, they averaged 85.6 points per 100 possessions. That was no small sample size either -– 132 match-ups.

Earlier in the playoffs, I wrote that Kawhi and Kevin Durant stood out as the best players in the playoffs. Well, Kawhi could cement his status as the league’s best by ending the dynasty in Golden State. If Durant plays, the Warriors will have four of the best five players in the series.

The Old Guard

These playoffs began in typical ugly fashion for Kyle Lowry, as DJ Augustin outscored him 25 to 0 in a Game 1 loss to the Magic. From that game on, Lowry has responded like an all-star, even while playing with an oven mitt-looking device protecting an injured left thumb. 

Against the Bucks, with Leonard limping all over the court, Lowry picked up the scoring slack, averaging 19 points, six rebounds and five assists per game in the series. He shot a 47 percent from three. In addition to the scoring boost, Lowry continued making huge hustle plays all over the court, as he has all postseason. He ranks second in the NBA in loose balls recovered (2.2) and charges drawn (0.72) per game. And he hasn’t been the only Raptor point guard to play a pivotal role either.

The Baby

If the Raptors win the title,  they’ll owe Fred VanVleet Jr. a championship ring. Leading up to the birth of Junior, which happened between Games 3 and 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Fred VanVleet was playing the worst basketball of his career, averaging an abysmal four points per game on 26-20-71 shooting splits over 15 playoff games. VanVleet had regressed from a high-end backup guard to G-League-caliber player once the playoffs began.

Then Junior was born, forcing VanVleet to go through some logistical gymnastics to visit his son in the hospital. VanVleet barely slept, missed shootarounds, and … barely missed a shot the rest of the series, averaging 16 points on 68-percent shooting from the field and 82-percent from three! His play was just the spark the Raptors needed off the bench, and it swung the momentum of the series. To top things off, he provided one of the quotes of the playoffs, “That's the formula, no sleep, have lots of babies and let it fly.”

The Run

With 2:18 remaining in the third quarter in Game 6, the Bucks made a free throw to go ahead 76-61. Over the next seven minutes and 15 seconds, the Raptors went on a 26-3 run, culminating in one of the best plays of the playoffs. Khris Middleton attempted an ill-advised behind-the-back move and was picked cleaned by Lowry, who started a fast break the other way. Sensing Giannis’ presence behind him, Lowry jump-stopped in the lane, pivoted, and flipped a golden shovel pass to a trailing Leonard. In what has become his signature dunk, Leonard leaped two feet from the middle of the key and punched home an emphatic left-handed dunk on Giannis.

“Stuffed! A facial by Kawhi Leonard!!”

As memorable as Kawhi’s dunk was, the defense the Raptors played during the 26-3 run was what could help them shock the world against the Warriors. Take a look at the Bucks’ possessions during that run:

• George Hill missed 26-foot three.
• Brook Lopez missed 23-foot three
• Eric Bledsoe missed 14-foot two
• Giannis missed 29-foot three
• Lopez made layup
• Malcolm Brogdon missed 23-foot three
• Giannis missed 15-foot two
• Offensive foul on Brogdon
• Hill missed 22-foot three
• Loose ball foul on Giannis, who made 1 of 2 at the line
• Ersan Ilyasova missed 28-foot three
• Turnover by Middleton.

Look beyond the missed shots and turnovers. Instead look at the distance from which the Bucks were shooting. Besides Lopez’s layup, their closest shot during that momentum-swinging stretch was a 14-foot Bledsoe jump shot! Nearly every player in the Raptors’ rotation is an above-average to elite defender. The Warriors will get careless with the ball from time to time, and the Raptors will need to capitalize on that carelessness in the Finals.