Barber: Raptors beat Warriors 105-92, and the better team won

OAKLAND

The greatest thing about sports is the human drama that drives it, and we love to use it to describe what’s happening on the court or field. How did the winning team do it? By trying harder, by showing more resolve, by loving the game a little more.

Sometimes, the concept hits a wall.

The Warriors showed as much heart Friday night as I’ve ever seen from them. They scraped and battled and exerted themselves despite serious injuries. And the crowd at Oracle Arena, knowing this could be the last pro basketball game ever played here, was just as passionate. None of it was enough in Game 4 of the NBA Finals. Not because the Toronto Raptors “want it more” or because fate has decreed this is their time, but because they were better than the Warriors. They ARE better than the Warriors, at least right now.

And because of that, the Warriors dynasty is in peril. The ?three-time champions head to Toronto on Saturday knowing they must win three straight games against the Raptors, including two on the road, or face a summer of ?questions and scorn.

First, a little about the Warriors’ show of strength.

Everyone knew Klay Thompson would play Friday night after missing Game 3 with a strained hamstring. I’m sure he would have played Wednesday if it were a do-or-die situation. But Thompson didn’t just occupy a position on the floor in Game 4. He led the Warriors with 28 points and was their best shooter, connecting on 6 of 10 3-pointers.

His effort went beyond that. Shooting the ball isn’t terribly hard on the hammy. But Thompson runs a lot to get his shots. The NBA tracks distance covered during games, and before Friday, Thompson was averaging 2.87 miles run per game in the 2019 postseason, tied for second in the league behind Portland’s C.J. McCollum. Game 4 wasn’t much different. Thompson dragged that hamstring all over the court to find open looks.

It was even crazier on the defensive end. Thompson had said earlier in the week that the injury most affected him when starting, stopping and changing direction. That’s the basic job description of playing defensive basketball. And Thompson didn’t coast. He spent most of the night guarding either Kyle Lowry or Kawhi Leonard.

Those are tough covers, for different reasons. Lowry is shifty. Leonard is a battering ram. Both are All-Stars. And while Thompson’s defense on them wasn’t perfect, it was spirited. By the end of the game, he was dragging.

Kevon Looney’s performance trumped that. He fractured the cartilage that connects his ribs to his sternum while hitting the deck in Game 2 at Toronto. Steve Kerr had originally said Looney was out for the series, and no one batted an eye because, I mean, you sort of need connecting cartilage in your sternum.

One medical site, Radiopaedia, notes that injuries of this type “might result in an unstable rib cage and may expose thoracic ?contents, such as the heart, to injury.”

If you find the term “thoracic contents” an adequate descriptor of our most vital organs, then you can say Kevon Looney has some of the biggest thoracic contents on the planet. He iced his shoulder and chest heavily before the game, sucked it up and wound up playing 20 minutes, scoring 10 points and grabbing six rebounds.

At one point in the fourth quarter, Looney caught a pass under the basket and juked Toronto center Serge Ibaka, who landed on him with his full weight. Looney winced only a little and stretched his arm a bit before missing two free throws. Imagine the pain that contact must have induced. Imagine how much it hurt just to grab a rebound.

“Klay was amazing, with a tweaked hamstring, to do what he did,” Kerr said afterward. “Looney as well, coming in and playing 20 minutes given his injury status. So both those guys are - they’re warriors. No pun intended. They just compete, compete, compete, and I’m really proud of both of them.”

No, the Warriors’ problem Friday night wasn’t thoracic contents. They weren’t outworked. They were outplayed and outcoached.

Thompson’s return took some burden off of Curry, but the Warriors can’t match the Raptors’ balanced scoring. Everyone in the Toronto lineup, plus Fred VanVleet and Ibaka off the bench, has the potential to put up 15 points or more on any given night.

In Game 3 it was Danny Green drilling six 3-pointers. In Game 4 it was Ibaka barreling his way to a ?20-spot in 21 minutes.

After four games, the Raptors look bigger, faster, deeper and more athletic. And they are the only team with Kawhi Leonard.

Leonard, not Curry - and certainly not Kevin Durant, who has yet to play - is the star of these NBA Finals. His extreme unflappability sets the tone for his team. And he does so much on the floor. Leonard plays smothering defense, blocks shots and runs the floor, and when he’s knocking down his shots - well, you saw what that looked like Friday. He made 11 of his 22 attempts and 5 of 9 3-pointers, and finished with 36 points. The Warriors have no answer for that.

They didn’t when the game started, and Kerr and his staff didn’t come up with many answers during the game.

There are nights when a shooter, even a great one like Curry, has troubling finding the mark. But couldn’t the Warriors have done something to set him free? Run a little isolation for the two-time MVP? Run the center-guard pick-and-roll that has proved effective in the past? Toronto coach Nick Nurse has busted out the freaking box-and-one defense in this series, and Kerr seems stuck in the box.

“Well, we’ll take a look at the tape, but we have been playing a certain style for a long time here,” Kerr said. “And the ball moves, and Steph is one of the great off-ball cutters in the league and can play on and off the ball. And so we’re trying to mix up the different things that we do. And it wasn’t his best game, but he’ll bounce back.”

There’s no way I’ll write off the Warriors. The rugged series they have survived in the past, the 3-1 deficit they overcame to beat the Thunder in 2016, the tweaks Kerr and his guys have engineered to change momentum - all of it demands respect, and even faith.

But if the Warriors do bounce back to win the NBA championship, I’ll consider it an upset. To do so, they will have to beat a team that looks every bit their superior.

You can reach columnist Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on TWitter: @Skinny_Post.