We probably should have known that Steve Kerr’s game plan for the opener of the NBA Finals on Thursday night was doomed in the final minute of the third quarter.
That was when Kawhi Leonard, the focal point of the Golden State defense all night, spent 15 seconds dribbling through blue-clad traffic, unable to create a shot for himself. He fumbled the ball away, got it back, drove just in front of the free-throw line and, surrounded by three Warriors bodies (Draymond Green, Shaun Livingston, Kevon Looney), flipped a desperate pass to Patrick McCaw with less than two seconds on the shot clock.
McCaw stood alone, as on a deserted island. This was new ground. McCaw, whose season was torpedoed by a protracted contract issue with the Warriors in the first three months of the year, had become little-used in Toronto. He had not made a shot since March 28 and was 0-for-3 in the playoffs. Of course the Warriors were going to sag off their former malcontent wing to pay more attention to Leonard.
But of course McCaw was going to grind some salt into the Warriors’ wounds by knocking down the 3-pointer, moving a tightening score back to an 88-81 lead. The Raptors would hold on from there, winning Game 1, 118-109, and taking control of a series in which they are decided underdogs.
Can see how the Warriors want to show help vs. Kawhi here. Draymond helping off Ibaka who is under the basket. Shows help and then doubles. Warriors recover only Looney gets beat on the drive, Kawhi finds McCaw for an open 3. pic.twitter.com/nlskGJjltY
— Steve Jones Jr. (@stevejones20) May 31, 2019
GAME 1 RECAP: Pascal Siakam powers Raptors to 1-0 series lead
So it went for the Warriors all night. They accomplished what they wanted to accomplish against Leonard, starting Andre Iguodala on him defensively, but willingly switching off Looney in high screens with center Marc Gasol and sending a wave of secondary help if Leonard held the ball long enough. The Warriors were trying to get the ball out of Leonard’s hands.
It worked. In fact, Gasol said, the Raptors knew it was coming, having seen the Warriors smother Trail Blazers guards Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum in the Western Conference finals.
"Well, if you watched the previous series against Portland, they did that with Damian Lillard and CJ, so we assumed that there was a chance they were going to blitz Kawhi," Gasol said. "So we were understanding the spacing that we were going to have and what kind of shot was going to be open, what kind of rotations they were going to do.
"Now, we got to still improve in some areas and spacing and moving out of that, but overall, I thought we did a decent job."
Decent enough on this night. Leonard was only 5-for-14 from the field and struggled when Looney took up the task of defending him. He had 23 points total but only seven against Looney, who held Leonard to 1-for-6 shooting — but had some help defense to go with his own efforts.
All that focus meant that Kerr was daring the rest of the Raptors to beat his Warriors. Outside of Leonard, the rest of the Raptors had shot just 33.5 percent from the 3-point line in the playoffs. There could be no way, it seemed, that Toronto’s shooters would come alive all at once. Kerr was playing some strong odds.
But the Raptors’ role guys did come through. Danny Green finally cracked out of his slump by making three 3-pointers and scoring 11 points. Fred VanVleet continued his impressive postseason run by scoring 15 points on just eight shot attempts. Gasol had his best postseason game (20 points, seven rebounds) and arguably his best game as a Raptor.
MORE: Takeaways from Raptors' Game 1 win over Warriors
And there was Pascal Siakam, too, playing free and easy the way he played to start the postseason. Siakam seemed to lose confidence late in the series against Philadelphia and into the Eastern Conference finals. But he found it on Thursday, scoring 32 points on 14-for-17 shooting. The Warriors can give extra attention to Leonard, but Game 1 showed they could not do so without offering up far too many open looks from the outside for Green, Gasol and VanVleet, as well as inside looks for Siakam.
"I mean, Kawhi didn't have his best game to his standards, but other guys stepped up," Warriors guard Klay Thompson said. "Siakam obviously had a game of his playoff life. Give him credit, running the floor. So we'll have to get back on defense next game and really limit their transition points, make them beat us in the half court.
"Yeah, we did a good job of limiting Kawhi, but it's not Kawhi Leonard — it's the Raptors. So we'll go back to the drawing board and see what we can do better for Sunday."
In all, the Raptors made 13 3-pointers and shot 39.4 percent from the arc. Leonard deserves credit for that — he was 3-for-6 on 3s himself on the night, but his mere presence so thoroughly spooked the Warriors that they pushed additional bodies toward Leonard and allowed him time to pick the defense apart with his passing.
That can’t happen so easily next time out. There will have to be some Game 2 changes for the Warriors, anything to keep up the pressure on Leonard but without yielding so many open shots. It was a good game plan by Kerr to start with, but now the other Raptors have some momentum on their side.
It must be staunched. The Warriors can withstand an onslaught from Leonard and still win, but they can’t possibly survive an onslaught from VanVleet, Green, Gasol and Siakam.
Kerr took a gamble by letting the other Raptors get their clean looks at the basket. Will he gamble on double-teams again?