Monday night, down 6 with 2 minutes to go and their backs against the walls, the Warriors showed a mental fortitude that only champions who have been to five straight NBA Finals possess.
After making three threes and then playing perfect defense on the final two possessions of the game, the Warriors escaped a game they could have lost multiple times and live to fight another day in Game 6 Thursday night.
Once Kevin Durant re-injured his Achilles in the 2nd quarter, the Warriors could have folded and decided that this year just isn’t their year. They certainly looked like they didn’t have the ability to keep going as they went into half time; they didn’t even bother to contest Danny Green’s half court heave because they were so exhausted.
Then, in the 3rd quarter Kevon Looney re-injured his chest and was ruled out for real this time. So how did the Warriors win this game 106-105 and force a Game 6? They won because of their greatness, some Raptors mistakes, and a couple other plays that went their way at the right time…let’s take a look!
Warriors 3-Point Shooting
In the Finals so far, the Warriors are shooting 38% from three-point range and in Game 5 then well exceeded that by 47.6% from deep (20 of 42). Their first quarter, fueled by Kevin Durant, was especially explosive as he went 3-3 and the Warriors went 7-10 as a team from the 3-point line.
In addition, Steph Curry looked like a completely different player than he did on Friday for Game 4. The extra day of rest definitely helped him. Curry was 7-11 with 23 points in the first half and he looked like himself again.
While having KD back helped Curry a ton, his energy was noticeable in the first quarter.
He grabbed that rebound when Kawhi was in the area too! That’s even more difficult to do with Kawhi’s long arms.
Raptors’ Active Hands
In response to the Warriors, the Raptors came out with a ton of energy and were constantly trying to go for the knockout punch in the first half. They were incredibly active on defense and poked away multiple Golden State opportunities.
They were ready for Golden State’s bad passing to continue as it had all series long and they made them pay in this game.
Despite that though, the Raptors still gave up a series high 34 points in the first quarter to the Warriors and a total of 62 at half time. A couple of those were because of bad rotations or quick Golden State movement. The other points were because of moments like this:
and this
Sometimes the ball just doesn’t bounce your way even when you do everything right.
KD Going Down Again
This was a truly devastating moment for anyone watching or playing in this game (except for Raptors fans I guess). After seeing KD look like he was fine and healthy again, it was heartbreaking to see him go down with an injury again. There was confirmation via his Instagram that he had a ruptured Achilles which has detrimental long-terms effects on both him and the NBA. However, this isn’t the post to cover that. I’ll address that in the future, but for now, I think the biggest thing to think about is the affect this has on the Warriors both mentally and physically.
Mentally, they saw their teammate give everything to come back and help them. Before he re-injured himself in the second quarter, he had scored 11 points in 12 minutes and you could see a road map to where the Warriors could come back and force a Game 7 now that Durant was back. Not that they can’t still do it, but it just got even harder, because at the very least, KD was another rotation player they can help them on both offense and defense.
Physically, with the health of Looney in hand, and how poorly Boogie has looked on back to back games, the Warriors are once again are out of offensive players. You saw their desperation on Monday night as they had to play Cousins 20 minutes despite how bad he was on defense.
After KD went down though, Cousins was the Warriors saving grace in a lot of ways as he scored 7 points immediately and helped extend the Warriors lead to 11.
However, to end the half, they looked gassed once again. I was having serious doubts at halftime whether the Warriors could maintain this lead. I knew that because of how well they were shooting, they had a chance, but I wasn’t sure if they could keep their legs underneath them and continue to make these long shots.
Boogie the Savior…Again!
DeMarcus Cousins, who was unplayable in Games 3 and 4, and looked like he was going to leave this game with a DNP, was called into the game after KD went down. He was exactly the spark the Warriors needed at a time like that. His offense helped control the tempo of the game and allowed Steph, Klay, and Green to process what had just happened to Durant.
He even played off the ball well with Steph and Klay in this cluster-play clip.
In the 3rd quarter, he also had a really good seal on Siakam to get two easy points
He seemed to always score at the right time tonight, just when the Warriors needed him most.
That actually seemed to be a recurring theme for the Warriors tonight.
In Game 3, everything was bouncing the Raptors way,
and in this game that luck swung the Warriors way.
However, Boogie still had some major problems on defense that I don’t think are fixable in this series…so Toronto will continue to attack him as long as he plays.
Kawhi the Killer
After having his worst 3rd quarter ever, Kawhi came back with one of the best two minutes single-player sequence I have ever seen. He became superhuman again and scored 10 straight points in just about every way possible.
Here he scored on his patented ball-palmed layup.
Then, he scored on a bad switch by Cousins.
After that he scored on a KD-like transition three.
Finally, he made another layup to finish off 10 in a row.
He gave the Raptors their first lead and he looked like a man who was ready to end the Finals that night…but Nick Nurse had other plans.
A Real Bad Timeout Call
As all the momentum was sliding in Toronto’s favor and the Warriors were ready to be broken, Nick Nurse (although it looked like Lowry called it at the time) called a timeout to give his players a breather and because he knew he’d lose that timeout once the game clock got below two minutes.
That turned out to be just the break the Warriors needed to group and comeback to win the game. I’m sorry Nick, but if your guys are tired then the Warriors players are probably even more tired! They had less guys to play than you did! Plus, Kawhi was on a roll.
He could have easily scored another bucket there. Instead you let the Warriors’ defense set, take Cousins out of the game, and bring in Iggy. That timeout basically only hurt the Raptors in that situation.
This proved to be the case as Kawhi Leonard air balled on the play following the timeout.
That wasn’t Nurse’s only mistake in my opinion. If I was him, I would have played Siakam more down the stretch than Powell. I know Siakam wasn’t playing well on offense, but he can still create his own shot and he would have been more of a scoring threat in the last minute than VanVleet or Green were.
The Warriors Three Minute Turnaround and Ibaka PTSD
The final five minutes of this game were some of the best five minutes of basketball in terms of craziness that I have seen almost all season. There were three incredibly clutch threes by Curry and Klay. Boogie had three terrible plays go against him and the Warriors played the perfect defensive possession at just the right time to win the game! Oh yeah, there was also a horrible back court violation by the Warriors and a few massive defensive breakdowns by them along the way!
The Golden State run started with a Klay three from the right wing thanks to a massive Draymond screen and a money pass from Curry.
Because of the timeout by Toronto, The Warriors were able to substitute Quinn Cook in the game and take out Iguodala (a class offense for defense switch). Because Cook was in the game, Powell had to extend out and defend him. This allowed Green to come around and screen Kawhi after the double team on Curry and Powell stuck with Cook into the corner. Wide open three for Klay.
Despite how good the Warriors were on offense; their defense was still surprisingly bad given the big moment. Here Klay and Draymond can’t decide if they’re switching or not and Lowry gets a wide open three. In Game 3 this shot would have gone down no question.
Tonight though, the Warriors got a little lucky.
Next came the first bad Boogie play in the clutch.
I personally think it wasn’t offensive interference, but I can understand why the refs saw this as a play they couldn’t overturn because of the original call. Also the screen Cousins sets for Curry to take the rushed three is a worse screen than the one he set a few possessions later.
An underrated defensive possession in these final couple minutes was the Warriors’ defense against Toronto with 1:45 to play.
Klay attached himself to Kawhi which allow Boogie to sag off Leonard and not get burned on defense. The Warriors extended their pressure past the three-point line which prevented the Raptors from getting into their offense. By the time the Raptors started doing anything, the shot clock was already down to five seconds. Finally, when Lowry drove to the basket, Cousins moved his feet well (thanks to the help of Iguodala pressure) and they forced an errant pass.
Then came Curry’s shot to tie the game and all of the sudden the Warriors had tied it up. I was genuinely confused about what had just happened in real-time, because as of two plays beforehand, I had settled into the mindset that the Raptors were going to be the new NBA champions. However, like I said at the top: never underestimate the heart of a champion. When there’s a will there’s a way and boy did the Warriors have a will this game.
Toronto also messed up on this possession because they should have been doubling Curry and not allowed him to get a shot off here. Iguodala was on the court so they could have helped off of him. Also look at the Cousins screen on this play. It’s the same screen that he sets when the refs call the illegal screen. Finally, look at Ibaka’s reaction to the shot. He looks like he had PTSD from the 2016 OKC/GSW series.
If you weren’t impressed with Golden State’s turnaround already, then wait until you see what happens next. After Kawhi’s missed three, the Warriors were able to play like the Warriors.
Curry grabbed the rebound and sprinted down the floor. His drive into the paint sucked up all five defenders which allowed him to pass to Iguodala who makes the smart pass to Draymond for three. He made the perfect swing pass, Kawhi failed at a desperation contest, and the Klay put Golden State up three. This was an iconic Warriors barrage that has defined their dynasty. Just when you think you’re safe, they start swinging the ball around with precision until you leave an elite shooter wide open…and he was wide open.
Let’s skip the Gasol missed layup and go to the next Toronto possession. DeMarcus Cousins committed an obvious goal tend and everyone in the arena, including DeMarcus himself, knew that. I think it’s not that big of a deal because Lowry was going to make that layup anyway so it’s all two points no matter what.
Next was the bad illegal screen call.
Somewhere out there Kevin Garnett is screaming into a void and breaking everything in his house over a call like that. The Celtics lost a playoff game on a similar call in 2012 against the 76ers. I don’t even like the Celtics and I thought that was a bad call.
I hate when refs make calls like that at the end of a game when they haven’t been calling them at all before. You can’t have one of the biggest moments in the game come down to a ref’s off-ball foul call. He also set essentially the exact same illegal screen on Steph's 3-pointer to tie the game and the refs didn't call it. If you're going to call it now, call it earlier too.
Thank goodness the Warriors won that game though because I would have felt so bad for DeMarcus if that cost Golden State the championship after he had played so well all game.
The Final Possession
The Warriors played perfect defense on that final possession against the Raptors. Their defensive unit allowed them to switch everything and contest Lowry in the corner (despite Gasol mauling Draymond Green the entire possession.
Iguodala came up to double Kawhi at the exact right time - which they had done before in the 1st quarter so they knew that they could get him to give the ball up.
On this possession, Kawhi threw the ball to VanVleet (who hadn’t done anything all game) and then to Lowry in the corner who could barely muster up a shot as Draymond Green tipped it just enough to throw the series winning shot off course.
I’m glad that was blocked because Lowry would have taken a ton of crap if he just straight up missed that shot, despite the fact that he had a good game on both the offensive and defensive end. He was consistently making his stop and pivot turnaround jumpers and he even did a variation of pulling the chair out from underneath Klay earlier in the game to get a clever steal.
Final Takeaways and Thoughts
A few final thoughts about some general trends from this game.
Once again, the Warriors’ passing was really bad at times:
On the flip side, the Warriors shooting was incredible, and the Raptors had their worst shooting game of the series from three – Siakam also didn’t play at all down the stretch because he was having a bad offensive game. If I’m the Warriors I wouldn’t count on that happening again. If I’m Toronto, like in Game 2, you have to be thinking that you played horrible and only like by 1 point with another two games in your pocket to close out the series.
Siakam’s bad play was partially because of how his game is constructed. He takes a lot of floaters, hook shots, and contested layups. Because of that, some nights those shots fall and other nights they don’t. Early in the first quarter, Siakam missed a transition layup and a relatively easy hook shot. He also committed an offensive foul in the second quarter and never really found his rhythm after that. I don’t expect him to have two bad games in a row so Toronto can count on him for next game.
Another thing to consider. Draymond picked up his 6th technical foul so if he gets one more, he’s suspended for one game which would be…Game 7 if the Warriors win and the tech isn’t rescinded. Draymond will need to be on his best behavior because he is just another vital piece the Warriors can’t afford to lose.
I don’t know what else the Warriors have to give after a game like this, but I do know (once again) to not count them out. I fully expect, and hope, that we are back in Toronto again for a Game 7 next Sunday because that will be an incredible atmosphere. Anything can happen and the Raptors’ crowd will be incredibly tense all game long if we get there.
Finally, Iguodala needs to tie his shoes better because this is the second time in the series that he’s lost his shoe.
See you for post-Game 6 analysis and be sure to check out the rest of my site for other basketball opinions and E3 coverage as well!