The first NBA Finals game outside the US was a party 24 years in the making. Then Pascal Siakam and the Raptors really gave Toronto something to celebrate.
Siakam on Thursday night scored a playoff career-high 32 points as the Raptors made a smashing NBA Finals debut, defeating the Golden State Warriors 118-109.
The Raptors hardly looked like newcomers to the NBA’s biggest stage, controlling the action most of the way against a Golden State team beginning their fifth straight NBA Finals appearance.
Photo: The Canadian Press via AP
“I think we did pretty good job at home,” Siakam said. “The fans are amazing, man. I just want to say that. From coming out for warm-up to the end of the game, it was just the support and then going crazy. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Kawhi Leonard added 23 points and Marc Gasol had 20 for the Raptors, who were not in awe of the setting or their opponents, who had played 22 NBA Finals games in the past four years.
“We know that they’re human. They’re a great basketball team, talented players, high basketball-IQ players,” Leonard said. “You just got to go out there and compete, take the challenge.”
Stephen Curry scored 34 points and Klay Thompson had 21 for the Warriors, who had won all four Game 1s in the past four years. All those had come at home, but this time Golden State does not have home-court — or home-country — advantage.
“Our goal was to get one and it’s still on the table for us,” Thompson said. “So I know we’ll respond like the champions we are.”
Game 2 is tomorrow night in Toronto, which is hosting an NBA Finals game for the first time after the Raptors entered the league as an expansion team in 1995.
The Raptors were perhaps a little jittery at the start, with Kyle Lowry firing a pass well out of bounds on their first possession.
However, they quickly settled in, building a 10-point lead by halftime.
Siakam then went six for six in the third quarter to keep Golden State from gaining much ground, and the Raptors kept their lead at about double digits for much of the final quarter, countering every attempt the Warriors made to catch up.
“We didn’t play very well tonight at all and we still had a chance the entire game,” Draymond Green said. “And it was a great atmosphere. This is a team or a city, a country, that hasn’t seen a finals ever here, so we expected it to be a great atmosphere and it was, but we can still play better and I know we will.”
All four of the Warriors’ previous finals were against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, and they struggled to figure out their new opponents.
Toronto shot 50.6 percent from the field and the Warriors never found an answer for Siakam, the finalist for NBA Most Improved Player who has a nice start for an NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) resume.
The native of Cameroon, nicknamed “Spicy P,” was red hot, shooting 14 for 17 from the field — and he tipped in his own shot on the last of his misses with 54 seconds to play.
Fans began arriving outside of Jurassic Park in the morning. There were lengthy lines at the arena’s entrances hours before the game, with some of the few fans who were not wearing Raptors red sticking to their original purple uniform with the dinosaur logo.
Rapper and Raptors global ambassador Drake sat in his courtside seat wearing a Curry No. 30 jersey — that is Dell Curry, Stephen’s father, who finished his career with the Raptors.
The Raptors introduced Dell Curry and some of their other former players after the first quarter, a group that included perennial All-Stars such as Tracy McGrady and Chris Bosh.
However, it was not until they got Leonard in a trade with San Antonio that Toronto were finally good enough to get to the NBA Finals.
He was not the dominant force he was in the first three rounds, when he averaged 31.2 points, but he had eight rebounds and five assists in his first NBA Finals game since winning MVP of the 2014 championship with the Spurs.
DeMarcus Cousins made it back from a torn left quadriceps to come off the bench in his first NBA Finals game, but the Warriors remained without Kevin Durant, the MVP of the past two NBA Finals.
He traveled to Toronto, but it was unclear if he would play before the series returns to the Bay Area, with Warriors coach Steve Kerr saying that he would have to go through a practice first.
The Warriors had won every game since he got hurt in the second round, but missed him against the Raptors, who are on a roll after falling behind 2-0 to Milwaukee in the NBA Eastern Conference final series.
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