Warriors desperate to get Durant on the court

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This article was published 08/06/2019 (1930 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO — The Toronto Raptors are expecting a desperate Golden State Warriors team to bring their best on tonight. And that may include their lineup, which could get a significant boost with the return of Kevin Durant.

The veteran all-star has not played since suffering a calf injury during the second round of the playoffs but practised on Sunday in Toronto and is listed as questionable. With the Warriors down 3-1 in the best-of-seven series and needing to win three straight games, this may qualify as a “break glass in case of emergency” situation.

All hands will likely be on deck, so to speak.

“The game plan changes if Kevin is out there or if he’s not. So you adapt accordingly. It changes matchups, it changes rotations, all that stuff. That’s true all regular season you deal with that, so you’re constantly adapting and adjusting according to who is available,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said Sunday.

Evaluation on Durant and a final decision on his availability would be ongoing right up until tip-off.

Durant is one of the best players in the NBA and gives an already-loaded Warriors team another big weapon, at least when healthy. He averaged 26 points-per-game during the regular-season and 34.2 points-per-game during the playoffs until his injury.

“If he plays, he’s an MVP. He’s an all-NBA player. He’s an all-star, finals MVP. He’s really, really talented. Really, really good. But we can’t focus on that. We have to focus on ourselves. That’s one thing we have done all playoffs is kind of focus on ourselves. Go out there and play how we need to play and grind it out and do what we need to do as a team,” Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry said Sunday.

Golden State doesn’t appear to be in panic mode despite their current plight. Only 11 teams in NBA history have ever come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a playoff series, and it’s only happened one time before in the NBA finals. The Warriors had a great view of that one — they watched LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers storm back to win three straight to capture the 2016 championship.

However, Golden State also erased a 3-1 deficit in the Western Conference finals that same season against Oklahoma City. This is the fifth straight year they’ve made it to the NBA finals, with three titles to show for it.

“It definitely comes with experience, for sure, because you can say it, but just how hard it is to do that at this stage and at this level. Having been here five straight times and been through all type of experiences and different styles of play, different paces, playing against amazing talents that we have had and even now with the way that Toronto has been playing these last two games, it’s just a matter of buckling down and figuring it out,” Steph Curry said Sunday.

“It’s easier for to us say that because we have been through so many experiences. I think the confidence that we can flip that switch, and no matter what has happened the last two games, be world-beaters (today) from the jump — that’s definitely something that we can do and execute. But it does help having been on the back end of this five-year journey, where we have seen so much and been in a lot of different atmospheres and different pressures and expectations that we can lock in on just strictly 48 minutes.

The context of it all really doesn’t matter. It’s win one basketball game and take it from there.”

Golden State dropped Game 1 in Toronto, but rallied from a halftime deficit to take Game 2 before it shifted to northern California for Games 3 and 4. So they at least have a recent experience of winning in enemy territory to draw on.

“The biggest key? I think there are two of them – it’s focus and passion. The talent side, the skill, putting the ball in the hoop, that will take care of itself, especially when we play with more passion than the other team, when we play with a great focus. That’s when you see the best type of basketball in the world from us. It starts with our leaders (Monday), including myself. We’ll come in the arena with the right mindset,” said Klay Thompson.

“I’m using the motivation of bringing one back to Oakland to help. We feel like the city of Oakland deserves one more game at least. So if we want that to happen, we got to go out and take care of business.”

However, the stakes are a bit different than during that Game 2 victory, with the Raptors poised to celebrate the first NBA championship in both franchise and Canadian history.

“We’ve just been like this all year. Kind of just like, We haven’t done anything. You don’t do anything in this league unless you win the trophy. You can accomplish this or that, but at the end of the day we have certain goals and standards that we want to reach. I think that’s the one thing that we have all kind of just like — our end goal would be a championship. And that’s what we have been working for all year,” said Lowry.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg