Photo via San Francisco Examiner
May 30, 2018 — The Golden State Warriors are headed to their fifth finals appearance in five years against the Toronto Raptors for their first ever.
It’s been a shock for the media to see these two teams in the finals; it was unanimous that the Bucks and Dubs would meet in the end. Even Raptor commentators mentioned they wanted their team to head to the finals, but they felt the Bucks were superior, and going to win.
That’s the beauty of the Raptor offense, they dominated a 242 lbs 6’11” power forward from the perimeter.
Raptors play a game similar to the Warriors in the sense that if one star player is double-teamed, the other four on the court step up their performance to win the game for them.
Both teams are going to have to switch up the way they play their game based on how the other plays their game (say that three times fast). I know this sentence seems very unoriginal, but the Raptors will have to adjust to whatever the Warriors throw their way in order to win.
As I listened to some Raptor podcasts in preparation for today’s game, I realized that most commentators (that are trying to remain unbiased and just analyze the two teams), are really just baffled.
There are so many different options that the Warriors and the Raptors can rotate with. They may start their original starting five, they may have more bench players starting, they may have a small team starting — the possibilities are pretty remarkable. Both teams are so versatile with the players within their team, they just have to play the game in order to figure out how they feel and for one to beat the other.
Siakam could guard Green, Iggy on Leonard, everyone on Curry and Thompson and everyone on Gasol.
This is kind of crazy to me, but everyone is choosing the Raptors to win the NBA Finals.
I’m not too sure if we’ve all been watching the same series? The Warriors lost the “Best player in the NBA” against one of the best offenses in the regular season, and they beat them. They’ve overcome a lot since losing Boogie in the first round (who is returning tonight 😱) and KD in the semi-finals. I don’t think the Warriors are going to go down without a fight because, well, a three-peat is the goal. They want to bring the trophy back to Oakland one more time.
Honestly, it’s a little difficult for me to decide a prediction because I believe the Warriors will go to six games and win it, but I also believe the Warriors will go to seven games because they’ll be down by two.
I guess I can say:
Game 1: Warriors in OT
Game 2: Toronto
Game 3: Warriors
Game 4: Warriors
Game 5: Toronto
Game 6: Toronto OR Warriors???
As always #GoDubs, let’s see what happens!
thesportsnote 