Kawhi Leonard and the Raptors Slay One Giant, but Another Awaits
Kawhi Leonard and the Toronto Raptors took the Milwaukee Bucks' wildly successful system offline for a fourth straight time Saturday, earning the first trip to the NBA Finals in franchise history behind a 100-94 win in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals at Scotiabank Arena.
Now, having bested an opponent who dominated the league for a year, the Raptors are set to face one with a stranglehold on a half-decade. The Golden State Warriors await.
Earning the chance to dethrone the champs was difficult, even if Toronto closed its series against the Bucks in decisive fashion, serving four straight defeats to a Milwaukee team that hadn't lost three in a row at any point all year.
Rest assured that head coach Mike Budenholzer, whose system-based approach also won him 60 games with the Hawks in 2014-15 before it unraveled amid similar failures to adjust in the 2014-15 playoffs, will catch heat for sitting Giannis Antetokounmpo six different times Saturday. The likely MVP was a plus-three in a game his team lost by six points; clearly, those breaks were devastating.
Milwaukee didn't fall unassisted, though. They were knocked over by a Raptors team that came together behind its star, employed smart strategies and stymied a Bucks offense like nobody else could all season. And when the Bucks couldn't score in the half court again and again, Leonard was always there to double the pain by producing buckets on the other end.
That's the more positive side of playoff exposure: The basketball world got to see the Raptors do something spectacular.
Leonard scored 12 of his 27 points in a decisive third period despite looking utterly gassed throughout the run. Fatigued players shouldn't be able to summon the hustle necessary to corral their own misses at the foul line, but Leonard did it anyway.
Video: Giannis Abruptly Walks Out of Press Conference After Bucks' Game 6 Loss
Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo had enough of the media when his season ended early Saturday night following his team's 100-94 Game 6 loss to the Toronto Raptors.
The forward walked out of the press conference after a question from ESPN's Malika Andrews:
The reporter asked both Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton whether they felt experience was a factor in their elimination in the Eastern Conference Finals.
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