The Ringer NBA Show - The Raptors Out-Warriored the Warriors | Heat Check

Episode Date: June 8, 2019

The Toronto Raptors push ahead to a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals after defeating the Golden State Warriors in dominant fashion. Host: John Gonzalez Guests: Dan Devine, Kevin O’Connor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Liz Kelly. The Ringer is introducing a new live Twitter after show covering season two of HBO's Big Little Lies with Jam sessions Amanda Dobbins and ESPN's Mina Kimes. Immediately after each episode, they'll be going live to give their initial reactions and break down everything we saw in the episode. And to kick us off, there'll be a special season two preview airing this Friday, June 7th at 12 p.m. Pacific. So join Amanda and Mina for that this week and then catch Big Little Live every Sunday night on Twitter. That was coming. It's Heat Check time. Welcome to Heat Check. I'm your host, John Gonzalez.

Isaac Leah is back in the studio in Los Angeles. I am joined in San Francisco slash Oakland slash the Bay Area by Dan Devine, per usual, in my hotel room. And a very special guest who is now laying down on my bed. Like lounging. Lounging on my bed. He has joined us in the series in the Bay Area. Kevin O'Connor has made himself at home. KOC.

Paint me like one of your beautiful French girls. Oh, no. Jesus Christ. Yeah, you didn't say that creepy at all. Seriously, right? This is fantastic. Much like the Toronto Raptors. Kevin O'Connor does whatever the fuck he wants.

Toronto Raptors go up three one in the series. I cannot believe it. I didn't anticipate it. All three of us picked the Golden State Warriors to tie up the series. They did not tie up this series, gang. How surprised are you? I'm not too surprised because when you consider just how limited this Golden State roster really is, right?

now without Kevin Nuran all the spacing that he provides on offense never mind the on ball dominance that he has brought his entire career the defensive versatility for him being able to put him directly on kawai allowing things to fall into place then you can put clay on kail lary then you can have dream on green rooming off ball never mind the fact that clay thompson is not 100% for damn sure with some of the air balls he had tonight and kavon looney like coming back whoopty-do like come on looney is a solid center take that suck it Kavana Looney. How about that? But he is not

a guy who's going to swing this series. He's a 20 minute per game player. So in that sense, no, I'm not surprised in that sense, but I did expect a better overall effort from Golden State tonight. That's for sure. I'm having a hard time taking you seriously right now because you've gone standless.

You're just holding the microphone like a fucking lounge singer. This is me every week. You've got a beautiful jacket on with like a silk pocket square coming out. I feel I stand up? I feel like there should be a tip jar. I don't know what's happening.

Divine, how surprised are you, not just by KOC and this whole bit, but... I'm surprised by the comfort level on the bed. The whole thing, he was just like, he just popped right down in there. I feel great. But by the Warriors who, I guess at some point, like, we should believe our lying eyes, right? Definitely. And, you know, Draymond Green kind of had a good line about this in the post game where the thing with the Raptors is outside of Kauai Leonard, he's been consistent every night.

He's been excellent. But every other night, he's been excellent. But every other night. It's sort of like whackamol. They're playing on defense. You know, Danny Green gets going in game three. They kind of take him out tonight. And then it's Serge Abaka comes up.

Pascal Seacum is great in game one. He goes down in game two. And sort of everybody slows down in game two. You get the Kyle Lowry game in game three. There's enough answers sort of everywhere on this roster offensively. And there's the baseline excellence on defense where eventually they're going to string out the possessions. Eventually they're going to slow down Golden State's motion and, you know,

they sort of shut off the off ball cuts. once they started sort of locking in on the high-low passing game that DeMarcus cousins had unlocked, kind of took DeMarcus cousins out of the series. He really doesn't have it. When he's on the floor, he stinks. It's been bad. The minutes have been really bad because he doesn't have any lift. He can't get off the floor.

And when he's not, if he can't make those high-low passes, there's really nothing he can do effectively on the floor. And if they're not getting an offense from him and they're only getting it from the Splash Brothers, there's really no other place they can go for consistent points. It seems silly to say, but I wonder how different this game unfolds if Cousins doesn't play at all. because that opening stint for him in the first quarter. It was some of the worst basketball that we've seen in this entire finals. And we've seen Jonas Derepco get minutes.

I love Jonas. He's a great dude. He hits the series so hard. Fucking KOC comes in with his elbows out and he's throwing bows. Everybody's catching him. For real. With cousins, though, look, it made sense for Steve Kerr to play him in the series. And it worked out in game two.

As you said, with the passing, it was tremendous. in game two. But game one he wasn't good. Game three, he was bad. And game four, he was worse. 15 minutes is 15 too many for Boogie. Maybe 14. We'll give him a minute.

The first minute was not good. You can buy him one minute with Boogie. You know, I think with Steve Kerr, he's a great coach, a sensational coach, and some of the play calls in order to get Steph loose or to attempt to get a looser, or amazing. But, you know, I'm thinking, I'm sort of thinking like the article that I'm writing, but it's like, part of me thinks like, what got you here? It sounds silly to say, what got you to five straight,

finals. Maybe you need to change it up here because Toronto is stopping everything that works. Right. They are all over every single step. Totally locked in on the action. Yes. I mean, they have two guys on him the second he catches the ball. Maybe what you got to do is use a lineup that you really haven't used all season long, even though Katie's out to put Dream on at the five with Alfonso McKinney at the four, have Andre Guadal out there. And then with Clay Thompson, Stefan Curry, run like a rocket's offense. Like 22 shots, nine, three, three. You guys. You for Curry doesn't feel like enough. Yeah.

Considering the limitations on this roster. Like how is Curry not jacking up 30 shots, 14, 3-pointers in a must-win game when you're down 10 plus late in the game? Yeah, I think that it's kind of crazy that, you know, we've been saying for the Warriors that they need more offense, which is just a wild statement for a team that's been this dynastic. And then in a game like this where Steph Curry goes for 27 points to think, yeah, you need more Curry.

It's kind of crazy. He didn't make a three for a while. He went two for nine from three. He was only nine for 22 from the floor. It wasn't a very efficient game. His best game of the series was the game that they lost game three, where he scored 47 points and somebody afterwards, not you, Dan Devine, who has been an excellent question asker in these post game press conferences.

But somebody else was like, hey, stuff, congratulations on your performance. Yeah, right. Yeah, we lost. Thanks a lot, guy. I appreciate it. But they did. They needed more curry. Yeah.

And I think, you know, it's interesting. you know, Drew Schiller, who covers the Warriors for, I believe, NBC Bay Area, was talking about, you know, remember when the Warriors ran 11 pick and rolls with Stefan Draymond down the stretch of that game against the Rockets? Where the hell's that? Over and over and over and over. And like, no matter what Houston did, trap it, switch it, drop, did not work. So where to go?

Yeah, right. Where did that go? And when you are absolute back against the wall, so maybe that's the case here. Maybe, you know, we've talked about this with Kerr sometimes. As you mentioned, Kevin, he's sort of so reliant or so, he believes so strongly, in what got them here. Doesn't necessarily always adjust until the backs against the wall. Now, we saw them in the Houston series say, you know, screw it, where we're going, you know,

balls out right away. We're going to play the death line up right up front. Obviously, that's not available to him right now, but the idea that your backs against the wall, like there is, if you do not come up with a better, significantly better effort on both ends of the floor in game five, your season is over. Your dynasty might be over. Yeah. This era in Warriors basketball is over.

So you've got to come out swinging. I wonder if we're going to see more of that in game five, because as Kevin said, the Raptors are incredibly smart on defense. They are on every action. And once they snuff those things out, they're off to the races. They're getting into their pace and their flow. And we saw in the second half, especially in that third quarter, they are tearing this warrior's defense apart. I have consistently not believed in the Raptors and they have consistently made me look stupid. I mean, not during the regular season, during the regular season, I thought that they were a very deep team, a good team, a talented team. But the kind of Raptors team that I thought would flame

out eventually in the playoffs, because that's what we've seen before. And this is obviously a much different Raptors team. And again, to my point of, like, at what point do we just believe in the fucking Raptors? It should have been a long time ago because they have played the Golden State Warriors six times this season. They've won five of those games. They have played 16 quarters of playoff NBA finals basketball against the Golden State Warriors so far.

They've won 13 of those quarters. They're up 3-1 for a reason. The Raptors are absolutely legit. And Kawhi Leonard is everything, but this supporting cast that you were talking about, like, where they've individually, there have been moments where they've been good and then like sort of invisible. But as a collective unit, it's almost like they've switched off helping Kauai. And it's been plenty.

It's been more than they've needed, which is it continues to surprise me. The funny thing is with this team, you had reason to doubt in some ways. They were down 1-0 to Orlando. They were down 1 to Philly. They were down 2-0 to Milwaukee. This is the first time in months that they've been up in a series. Yeah. So it's like, but even when they were down, they came rushing back.

obviously, you know, but like, no, you're right. Like now it's, it's kind of like, okay, yeah, they, they did themselves a disservice in the series by, like, putting themselves in a hole and having to fight out of it, but, you know, credits to them for doing it. But now there's no hole. Now it's just like, oh, we figured it out. Well, like, you know, the four series that we're playing in the postseason. We got this now. And it's incredible because it's against the fucking warriors. It's really insane.

But it's also, and it's, what's remarkable is I think the fact that you have such a veteran heavy group and so many guys who have had so many disappointments in the past in the playoffs with Lowry, with Mark. with Serge Abaca, with Danny Greenio, had success in San Antonio, but also had some real heartbreaking moments with the Spurs. All those guys are looking at this and saying, like, there's all these cliches about one possession at a time, one game at time. Marcusal, again, we have talked about his unwillingness to count and it's my comparisons or my questions, but there's that, but every time. It's delightful all series.

But when you talk to me, it's like, I'm not, I'm not thinking about anything beyond the next thing because that's all we can control is the next thing. Marcosol after this game is like the only thing that matters is game five. The only thing that matters is how we come out. the beginning of that. It's absolutely true. And all of those guys have that mindset. We can't get too far ahead of ourselves. And even when they're down, you know, they're down in the first half. They're down in the first quarter. And I'm thinking to myself, I bet all those dudes feel really good about this because the shots they were getting in that first half, they were, I think they took 10,

three points in the first quarter. A lot of them were pretty good. The actions were good. The motion was good. I bet they're all saying to themselves, we stick with it. This comes right, comes right away. Kaui Leonard opens a second half with what I believe Fred Van Vlis called two FU shots. We can call them fuck you shots on the ringer NBA show on the heat check. We learned that. We learned that. We checked in on that.

We have it's okay. But they're off to the races. There's that sense. Like this is a team that knows we keep going play by play by play and we're going to get someplace. They're really close now. I think that point that you just made about the way that they came out. So after game two, Kevin, or during game two rather at the half, Dan turned to me and he's like,

I can't believe the Warriors are only down five. And then the Warriors went on that 18-0 third quarter run. And tonight, I was thinking to myself, I can't believe the Raptors are only down four because they had a really bad first half. And then they come out in the second half in that third quarter. They score 37 points in the third quarter alone. Unreal.

Kauai Leonard had 17 of those points. The Golden State Warriors only scored 21 points as a team in the third quarter. The Raptors out-warriered. the Warriors, the Warriors are supposed to be the third quarter team. It was the Raptors. Kwan Leonard, all series has been sensational, despite not shooting the ball very well until tonight, 11 for 22, 5 of 9 from 3. I think with him, in that third quarter, it was largely the scoring with 17 points.

But this dude, like, even if the shots not falling, getting to the line, Bored Man gets paid, as he said, like rebounding the hell out of the ball. And obviously, the defensive contributions that he brings, it goes without saying, granted, the off ball can be a bit better. that's a whole different conversation. I think this is the time we got to start breaking down Kyle Laird's game. Right now.

This guy got it in the mirror. Let's put into the microscope, Kevin. But I do think with this entire Raptors team, especially in that third quarter, you know, after the first half, it speaks to those cliches you were talking about, Dan,

where this is a one play at a time team. And like a lot of cliches are true. I mean, just like Google, Google, like popular cliches. A lot of them are true. You don't want to use them in your writing, but they're true. And so like with Toronto.

What's, give me one that you want to apply to this one. Well, I mean, really it's the one day we're using all game long, like one game at a time. We're not looking too far ahead. And it's the truth.

Like that's what sort of got him here. That's why they were able to get past 1-0 to Orlando, 2-1 versus Philly, 2-0 to Milwaukee. And now up 3-1, this is probably what they're not getting ahead of themselves because they've trained themselves to be this way, this entire season under Nick Nurse,

and obviously throughout the playoffs. So for this team, I think anytime they're in a hole, they are going to continue to take it one possession of the time. And they have obviously the defensive bodies, the talent in order to act on that mindset. You mentioned on Twitter, I saw that you say that Nick Nurse has coached a hell of a series. And I thought that it was really interesting because, you know, there were multiple times during the game where you could see him go into those adjustments in game, right? Where they decided to run. And he had mentioned this before, you know, maybe we're going to go to Kyle Lowry and Fred Van Fleet at the same time.

They had been starting the second halves that way, but he went to it earlier. He went to it in the second quarter. And also, I believe it was the first time that they went to Abaka and Gasol at the same time on the floor in this series, which was he was searching for things in the in the first half because they got off to such a slow shooting start. I mean, they looked really bad in the first half to the point where like. You and I looked that up at the same time in our Sergei Baca slack channel. We have a Sergei Baca slack channel. Yeah. And at the ringer and in the chat.

If we keep talking about ringer slack, people are going to set us on fire. But, like, gone. Listen, this is part and parcel of what you got here. Point, though, is like, you posted about it in our Sergeabaka slack. And, you know, I responded, like, you were like, this is the first time they've used it. And it's like, technically, no. They used it for less than a minute. Less than a minute.

They're in the play. But they used it for, like, a stretch here. Exactly. And Dan and I talked about this in game three where we thought, you know, know, like to Kevin's earlier point about Boogie being terrible and he should only play one minute, uh, we were saying like, like the, saw and the and the Raptors Bigs were eating bogey up and they were eating up Bogot. And yes, the Warriors got Looney back, but ultimately like when Nurse was searching for some answers,

that idea of, oh, yeah, right, our bigs have been pretty good in this series. Let's run both of them out there and see if that can jumpstart us. And that wasn't the reason why they did it or that they, you know, got back in this game and they won the game. but it certainly didn't hurt. And again, Abaka found money. Like, he had a good game. He had a fantastic game. Awesome.

20 points on 9 for 12 shooting, a couple of blocks, but it felt like a lot more than that in terms of shots that he was able to alter or contest. And Nick Nurse was saying after the game with Abaka, it's kind of like once he gets involved in the series defensively, blocks a couple of shots, gets sort of his rhythm going. Everything else seems to come at once for him. And the big thing that was for, you know, his sort of success point all season before he got moved from the starting line up to the bench with the market assault trade was the relationship he developed with Kyle Lowry in the pick and roll, the way they've been able to

sort of find spaces in defense and get Abaka, you know, going for either mid-range jumpers or diving to the rim. And when the warriors were selling out to try to take away Kawhi Leonard in the second half after he got going in the third, that opened up so much space for Lowry to make plays with Abaka and the pick and roll in the fourth. And that was really what sort of they rode home. They were like, well, they had the lead. They delivered their counterpunch in the third quarter. And then it was like, you can't stop this. We know you can't stop both of these things at once. So here you go.

You're going to try to put two on the ball. Kauai's going to put two on Kauai. We're going to the pick and roll over here. And Abaka just eight in that whole fourth quarter. Has Golden State's pick and roll defense ever been worse than what we've seen right now? It's been rough. It's been really bad. Yeah.

And I wonder, you know, we expect that when DeMarcus Cousins is in the game because it's never been necessarily a strong suit of his. And also he's had the injuries. And it feels like Golden State has just worked better on both ends of the floor with either Looney or Bogan in the middle. But it does. It really speaks to the. point you made, Kevin, where they haven't been able to get to Draymond Green at five,

or whether they haven't been able to or Curtis hasn't done it. They haven't gone to it. And that's the best version of those lineups when you can have more athleticism in the pick and roll, better able to switch and cover up, you know, spaces and getting to the passing lanes. Not having Kevin Durant takes a lot of the starch out of that. It removes options. But either way, Golden State has usually been a defensive team. They have not been able to get there.

As you said, they're getting sort of out warriors in this series by a Raptors team that's really well equipped to do that on both sides of the floor. Meet the new warriors. They're the Raptors. I mean, they've, they've been fantastic, like, just throwing all these different looks at you, and there's so many different ways that they can kill you. It's the box and one, yo. I mean, the box and one thing is like, they brought it back and everybody got, everybody got very

excited. Oh, my goodness. You mentioned the cliche point, right, which was true, like, that the Raptors haven't gotten ahead of themselves in this series. But we've heard, like, the reverse, something similar, but the reverse from the Warriors, which the whole, the whole series. I wrote about this, I written about it multiple times with the, but the reverse. Warriors where the Warriors were like, you know, the only thing that matters is us, right?

Like, if we play our game, we're going to win as these cliches go. Well, guess what? You've tried and it hasn't worked out. And then tonight, Draymond said, you know, we just got to win one game. In our video, I said to you, when is that one is that game coming? And you said, it better come in game five. Yeah, no shit. But do we believe that? Like, I don't mean, no shit, divine. You called that your Magic Johnson moment. But no, it was so true. Like, my whole point here is that the Warriors keep saying, oh, we only got to win one game, but like, you've lost all the one of these games. Like this idea that they can just be like, oh, no, it's going to be the next game that we're

going to be the Warriors. Don't worry. Our games are coming. Well, we're going to be fine. We've pulled out of a three one hole before. Okay. It doesn't look like you're going to be fine. What he said about winning one game is better than what he said after game three, though,

when he said, quote, win the next game, go back to Toronto, win game five, come back to Oracle, win game six, celebrate fun times ahead. And I put it in our Draman Slack. That quote reminds me of Tom Brady before Super Bowl 42 when I think it was Placocobarus on the Giants said. Oh, the legend of Plexigal Burris? Yes. He said the Patriots are going to score 17 points. And Tom Brady said, quote, we're only going to score 17 points.

Okay. And the Patriots ended up only scoring 14. Yeah, right. In the World 42, one of the worst days of my life as a sports fan. So great. Probably one of the best for everybody else listening to this podcast. I enjoyed it quite a bit. But Draymond saying, I cried.

I was at a fetal position on the ground. True story. I'm not lying about that. Don't get into that position on the bed. I will not. You know, there's been a couple times sitting here that I was like, should I have said that at the beginning? I am. There's one rule of the podcast.

And it's stay out of the fetal. Should I have quoted Titanic? I'm checking out of this hotel room much earlier than anticipated. Drayvon said after game three, I don't see us losing too many more games. and then they lost another game. You don't have to lose too many more of them, dog. You just have to lose two, and you're already down one. It's just incredible that like the hubris.

And again, like, you know, they've made five straight championships for a reason. So I get why they believe supremely in themselves. But at some point, the sense of urgency has to materialize if you're going to get back into it. And it didn't look at any point during this game. Well, that's not true. In the first half, it looked that way. Especially I thought like Clay looked so good. They were they were posting him a little bit on Kyle Lowry.

Yep. He was hitting some threes. Like, he looked really good. Clay was fantastic tonight. And I thought, oh, right, this is what they need. And also, we all said to each other defensively that they looked considerably better with Clay and Looney available, which I thought they did. But in the second half, when Kauai and the Raptors went on that run and it started to get away from them a little bit, that urgency seemed like it completely vanished. And I'm like, what is this version of the Warriors?

I'm so, like, I'm not used to seeing this. None of us are. Yeah, you know, Stefan in the post game talked about, you know, is it in our locker room, we're talking about believing. Everybody out there believe that we can get this done. Draymond sort of struck a similar note. Steve Kerr struck a similar note. All those guys have been there before.

They have been through the ups and downs and won championships. But it sounds like they're trying to talk themselves into it. They're trying to like sort of speak that into existence, that kind of the spark, the energy they need. Because you know what, dog, the cavalry's not coming. I don't know how we can believe at this point. that Kevin Durant's going to ride it on his white horse and win them three straight games. He hasn't played in a month.

Brian Winhorse was reporting after the game on ESPN that the pregame four workouts that he did were not fruitful in a way that everybody expected. His body was not responding to them the way they were hoping. This is not the solution to all the problems. There's no like Deu Sechina coming in here to fix this up. If you're going to participate in your own salvation, you better friggin do it right now. And they just don't look like they're able to do it. I mean, you can believe as much as you want, but they need Kevin Durant.

And that was apparent after game one. It's more apparent than ever now. So it's less believing and more kissing his feet, erecting statues outside of Oracle Arena or outside of Chase Center in San Francisco. It's like, yeah, like there's probably no convincing him to come back. The guy's hurt. The guy's hurt. But it's like if he can come back in any capacity,

just having him as a spot-up shooter, the spacing that he provides, he doesn't have to dribble. He's an upgrade. And the defensive versatility that he would provide just even at 60%, 70% would make a massive, massive difference for their odds. They're trying to steal minutes right now with Alfonso McKinney on Kauai, which would, you know, like obviously if you've got KD, that's a totally different situation. It unlocks so many possibilities for the Warriors where right now, yes, they're banged up,

but like they don't have a lot of answers. And yeah, I mean, like that whole narrative coming into this series where it was like, oh, the Warriors might be better without KD. Oh, that's bullshit. That's what I said that multiple times on this podcast. COC where I was like, how could they possibly be better with a top two player in the NBA? Or like without a top two player. Yeah, right.

That doesn't make any sense. Of course they're better with KD. And now if you're KD, you're looking at this going. Yeah. If you're not saying it out loud, but you're thinking it. Yeah, of course you're better with me. Of course you need me. By the way, I'm probably leaving.

Does it feel like something's ending right now? Yeah, it does feel like something's ending. I don't mean to change topics with terms of the ending, but like everything you said, I can't help but think about why doesn't occur have these options? And it comes down to the decisions that are made, like, granted, when you have all these star players, it's hard to find guys, but it's like, it's just unfortunate for them that they have not been able to find the reliable bench pieces with their draft picks missing on a handful of guys, Damian Jones, Jordan Bell, who are barely playable or unplayable. And never mind the fact that like, with you're signing Andrew Bogut out of Australia. And like, he presents a better option than boogie. And Damien Jones and Jordan Bell.

The guys are drafted. It's crazy. And it's just disappointing that for Golden State and the draft is a crapshoot that it hasn't worked out, this things would be different if they were able to replace Kevin Durenne with some quality bench players. So, you know, that's part of the reason why it feels like it's ending. Yeah, I mean, the options that are available are, you know, insufficient. And there, you know, there's lack of success in terms of finding the, whatever to call them,

like the gollums, right? The guys that are like the ring chases at the end of the bench, you know, we didn't find those guys this time. You know, there's Bogop bringing back. But, you know, it's Jerebko, not really there for you there in the situation. And, you know, it's. there is not that sort of influx of guys who are like, I'm going to latch on to get this sort of run to glory.

Like, as weird as it might sound, like, how much better would this team look if like Vince Carter took the money and went over there, right? Like another guy who could shoot and play. You know, like, as you wrote KOC, like it is a decision that you make 10 times out of 10, 100 times out of 100 if Kevin, you can get Kevin Durant, you freaking get Kevin Durant and you figure the rest out later.

But then if he's not available, the figuring out becomes hard. The figuring out becomes pretty hard. Yeah, the roster construction here, and let this be a lesson to all, those teams, you know, not to bring everything back to Philadelphia, but the Sixers are looking in a situation right now where like maybe they'll, they go out and bring back Jimmy Butler at a max and who knows if they bring back Tobias Harrison at what price. But when you start

loading up on these super high-end max contract guys, building out the rest of your bench becomes incredibly difficult. And it sounds crazy because, of course, like you go, yeah, we want Kevin Durant to stick around. Of course, we want to have all these superstars. But yeah, yeah, if one of them's not available. And now all of a sudden, like that house of card starts to teeter a little bit. And like, I just can't, I still can't believe that we're here. Like, we're in a situation right now where the series is going back to Toronto. And it might end there.

And it might end in five. And if, if you had said to anybody, this series is going to be a five game series. Do you think that there's anybody outside of Canada that would have been like, oh, yeah, that's going to be a Raptor series? I didn't see that very popular pick. I don't know about you, Kevin. I had Warriors and Six. there weren't many people I talked about

Raptors in the series, though I didn't Let alone Raptors in free and five. But on that note, there was one executive who did say Raptors and Five to me. I was like, you're fucking crazy. Like, no way. And like, yo, here we are. Here we are.

Canada, Canada, we had a great time, Dan and I for the first two games. You won us over. The entire country was so excited. T.O.C. And you're about to get on the media charter and head out to Toronto. in like eight hours or something like that.

Who's the count? Yeah, who knows? I'm not going to do the math for you. But like, you're going to see a city and a country that's like completely mobilized. Like they threw themselves behind the Raptors. And with good reason. And I think like when we were doing our preview videos about like,

do you think that they can win and like how do you convince Quieta State? They were also overly optimistic. Totally. All right. This is just like fanboyism. And maybe it was. But also the Raptors are making them believe for a reason because they've been the team that, you know,

that they thought that they. could be that very few of us thought that would happen. And like, here we are. It's just, it's mind-boggling. Nick Nurse had a really great line about this, where, you know, the addition of Kawhi Leonard to what that did for the team's belief. He said, I think more than anything, just once we saw him early in the year, I think your team's vision of who they can become eventually changes. Said that about Marcusal, too. When we got him, we started passing the ball. Our assists started going way up, became the number one three-point shooting team in the league because of the extra passes. And I think our team again thought their sense of who they could become went up.

Every step along the way, they believed a little more and a little more and a little more. And now they're here. They believe it was very clear watching that game tonight. They believe they're the better team. Now, maybe they, in a theoretical injuries off, fatigue off, stimulate the series with Kevin Durant in the lineup. Maybe they're not the better team. But they are right now in this matchup.

They've been it for most of four games. And all they got to do is do it one more time. and then they win the whole friggin thing, which Toronto's never done, and they knock off and basically put the stake in the heart of the ascendant dynasty in the NBA. It is an unbelievable story to everybody but all those people who believed because they saw that belief go up a little bit

and a little bit and a little bit. And by the way, like injuries are part of the game. I mean, so it's like if anybody's going to say, well, if, you know, Katie was playing. You fuck out of here with your asterisk. Yeah, I mean, like, who needs that. Injuries are part of the game in every sport. Totally.

And it's like players get hurt all the damn time. And by the way, I'm like standing in the Raptors locker room after the game like, Kauai Leonard is walking with a serious ass limp. I mean, like it's even more apparent being up close with him in the locker room than it is like watching from afar when he's on the court. He is not healthy at all. And it's a type of thing where it's like he's playing through it and he is battling and he is producing still at elite level against, you know,

still without even Kevin Durant, still a really strong defense against him. injuries are part of the game, but like before the season ever started, right? Like there was a conversation among people. Like there was sort of like a fatalism associated to it, like an inevitability that like the warriors were going to win again, right? You look at their team, they're too loaded. And invariably somebody, whenever I'd have this conversation, whether it was with a fan

or with another writer, somebody would say, yeah, but what if there's an injury to Curry or Durant? And I was like, then they still have Curry or Durant. Right. And it should still be enough. But no. And like, that's still kind of shocking to me. I do, however, wonder if the idea of burying the warriors, quote, unquote, dynasty might

be a little bit premature. Not in the series. I think that the Raptors are obviously, like, in the driver's seat, right? Right. But I'm saying for next season, like, Katie leaves. And then, you know, that opens up cap space and they could figure out, you know, like, some maneuvers that they could do. And, like, you know, let's not forget that they were a really good team before KD showed up, too.

So I don't think, like, all of a sudden, the Warriors. should like fold the organization. And that's the end of the war. I love it. I love it. It's a perfect KOS. No, I mean, to your point, gone, it's like, Golden State's not going away. Yeah. And that's where, like, with this team, I don't want to, like, step on my idea from Mondays or,

well, I think, like, this team becomes the spurs in a way, where it's like, if Katie leaves, then suddenly you're talking about this team as this beloved team that's going to be in contention every year. And they might win it a couple years from now. They might win it next year, even without KD, with any type of other changes that they make. But I think they go back to becoming a beloved franchise where Katie's gone if he leaves.

And then it's Steph and Clay and Dre, just like it was in the first place. And they're playing that fast-paced style moving the ball and they're going to be adaptable. And they're probably going to make some tweaks you would hope that are not happening right now in the series. You know, I would like to see Steph shoot more. But maybe I think that would happen over time.

You, as you mentioned, are on a very early morning flight to Toronto. You're going to Brooklyn. I'm to L.A. Let's make, before we wrap this thing up, because everybody's got to write, chances that it ends in five in Toronto. I mean, I've now gone all the way over. I think it's over. I think they're done.

You're not getting Durant back. I don't believe they're getting Durant back. And I believe that the Raptors have solved the problems. They needed to solve it every step of the way. I think it's over. I'm not. I don't think it's over until we hear Katie's out. And when we hear Katie's out, then I'll say it's over.

but until Katie's out, I'm not ready to go there because Katie is the one variable that yet to be decided. I don't care what's been reported tonight. It's Friday. It's going to be early Saturday morning by the time you guys hear this. If we get news Sunday, news Monday, then we'll have a better idea if this is over or not. But you're leaning Raptors. I'm leaning Raptors. I think as everybody who has listened to this show knows, and I don't mean just this show tonight,

but all the shows that we've done for He-check, I've never doubted you, Raptors in Canada. And I too am riding hard for the Raptors. I believe it's going to be over in five, which then necessarily means that Golden State's going to win and bring it back to buckle up for a long series, because we just screwed Canada by picking them. Oh, boy.

Fantastic, wonderful. KOC is now climbing under the blanket. He's easily, that's a lie. He's climbing into the sheets. He's going to write from my room, I guess. I've been displaced. KOC, thank you for doing this. Dan Devine.

You have been a wonderful partner on Hecheck throughout the playoffs. appreciate it. Heat Check will be back after game five. Thanks for listening everybody. Bye.