Pictured are Stephen Curry (wearing white jersey) of the Golden State Warriors and Kawhi Leonard of the Toronto Raptors
By editor Kathy Wray Coleman
Coleman has covered NBA basketball and NFL football events here at Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com since 2013.
CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-Oaklandm California-In their first ever appearance in the NBA Finals, the Toronto Raptors beat the legendary Golden State Warriors Thursday night at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California, winning Game 6 114-109 and taking the series 4-2 to bring home the franchise's first ever NBA title.
Kyle Lowry finished with 26 points, seven rebounds and 10 assists to lead the Raptors, Pascal Siakam added 26, and Kawhi Leonard, named the playoffs MVP, got 22, he and and VanFleet, VanFleet his team win the title.
Raptors head coach Nick Nurse was elated.
"It's great, obviously this is what you dream about," said Nurse after his team's historic championship win
Klay Thompson, who left the game injured in the third quarter, led the Warriors with 30 points, and Andre Iguodala put up 22 points.
Stephen Curry, the Warriors' starter and former MVP who helped carry his team to the playoffs, as did starters Iguodala, Thompson and Dravon Green, struggled Thursday, and scored only 22 points. And he missed a necessary 3-pointer with some five seconds left.
Drayvon Green put up 11 points for the Warriors.
The finals series is the best of seven games, the Warriors leaving their arena last night after a stunning loss that came in the absence of Warriors' superstar Kevin Durant, who was lost to a calf injury in the second round of the playoffs and played briefly in Game 5 of the finals before an Achilles injury sidelined him for the rest of the finals.
The Raptors finally had their moment, one previously denied to them because they could not get pass Cleveland in recent years to win an Eastern Conference title that would have elevated them to the finals.
Cleveland Cavaliers' fans can clap at the Warriors' loss, the six-time NBA champions, led by head coach Steve Kerr, winning over Cavs for the championship title last year, a four games sweep that brought tears to the eyes of some Cleveland fans.
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Last year's finals series was the fourth consecutive NBA Finals match up between the Warriors and the Cavs, who won the title only in 2016, and over the Warriors.
The Cavaliers trailed the entire Game 4 of last year's finals, and were down by an embarrassing 21 points at the end of the third quarter, Cleveland unable to overcome the greatness of Curry, and Durant, and the talent of Green, Thompson, an Iguodala, the quintet that helped to bring an NBA championship title for the Warriors against the Cavs in 2017.
But Durant, Drayvon Green,Thompson, Iguodala and Curry could not pull it off for this year's finals series, injuries aside.
Durant's absence was no doubt felt, and losing Thompson to a knee injury in the third quarter did not help.
The Cavs' losing at the NBA Finals last year, and problems leading up to the loss, shook up the franchise, LeBron James leaving for a second time via a four-year $153.3 million contract deal with Los Angeles, and Cavs head coach Tyronn Lue later fired, his replacement, Larry Drew, now gone too.
"Thank you Northeast Ohio for an incredible four seasons," James said after signing a mega millions contract last year with Los Angeles, which, like Cleveland, did not make the playoffs this year. "This will always be home."
While Cleveland fans are not as enamored with James since he left the Cavs last year, his departure in 2018 was far less contentious than when he abruptly left Cleveland and signed with Miami in 2010 and Cleveland fans burned his jersey in public.
An Akron, Ohio Native who entered the NBA in 2003 after graduating from the city's St. Vincent-St. Mary's Vincent High School, James won his first two championships while playing for the Heat, in 2012 and 2013.
He returned to Cleveland in 2014, leading the Cavaliers to the championship title in 2016.
Widely regarded as one of the greatest NBA players of all time, James has "won three NBA championships, four NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, three NBA Finals MVP Awards, three NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards, two Olympic gold medals, an NBA scoring title, and the NBA Rookie of the Year Award. James is a 14-time NBA All-Star, 11-time All-NBA first teamer, and five-time All-Defensive first teamer."
James is "the Cavaliers' all-time scoring leader, the NBA All-Star Game career scoring leader, and the NBA career playoff scoring leader."
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS
