Toronto Raptors Win Their First NBA Title, Beating Golden State Warriors in Game 6

After 26 years of far more fizzle than fizz, Canada’s championship drought is over. The Toronto Raptors, riding the magic of a generational star backed by a rookie coach and a tenacious supporting crew, topped the two-time defending champion Golden State Warriors to claim the team’s first National Basketball Association title.

“This is what I play basketball for,” Kawhi Leonard told the sellout crowd in Oakland’s Oracle Arena after winning the finals Most Valuable Player Award, his second. A couple of thousand miles away, raucous supporters went into a frenzy on the streets of Toronto and in the Jurassic Park fan zone outside Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena.

By taking the NBA crown, the Raptors ended a stretch of more than two decades without a major championship for any Canadian team in North America’s biggest sports. That’s dating to the 1993 World Series win by the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team and the Stanley Cup hockey title won that same year by the Montreal Canadiens. (Though Toronto FC did win soccer’s MLS Cup in 2017.)

Kawhi Leonard hasn’t been universally designated the world’s best basketball player. But he’s made a case for it this postseason, racking up a performance that puts him in the ranks of some all-time greats. In Game 4 of the Warriors series, Leonard joined the elite company of Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal and Kevin Durant by becoming the fourth player to score more than 35 points while giving up zero turnovers in a Finals game. And Leonard’s 732 points this postseason puts him behind only Jordan at 759 or LeBron James’s 748 among the all-time best players.

Leonard’s status in the NBA was far from certain when the season began. The forward had missed most of the previous campaign with the San Antonio Spurs because of injury, and rumors were swirling about disquiet between the team and his handlers. In response, Leonard rose as a Raptor supernova with his remarkable athleticism, scoring versatility and dogged defense. And then there’s his famous mindset, which might be described as mind-blowing even-keeledness.

Nick Nurse wasn’t the clear choice to lead the Raptors when the team fired Dwane Casey last May just before being named coach of the year. Sure, Nurse had been coaching for three decades, but never as an NBA skipper. Other candidates including former Atlanta Hawks and current Milwaukee Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer seemed more likely candidates.

Yet Nurse, 51, has always had a knack for winning, either at the U.S. college level, the minor leagues or in Europe. The Iowa native was named coach of the year in the G League and in the U.K. And in his five years as an assistant in Toronto running the offense with the Raptors, the team’s scoring strengthened, especially from three-point range. Under Nurse, the team also stepped up on defense. Nurse joins Golden State coach Steve Kerr in the select group of rookie coaches to win an NBA championship.

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