Toronto Raptors’ Pascal Siakam smiles during practice for the NBA Finals in Toronto on Wednesday, May 29, 2019. Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Raptors and Golden State Warriors is Thursday in Toronto. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP)
TORONTO — Sometime in the next couple weeks, either the Toronto Raptors or Golden State Warriors will proclaim themselves to be world champions.
They won’t be true “world” champions, of course.
But these NBA Finals have a very distinct international feel.
Game 1 of the series on Thursday night is in Canada, the first time a finals game will be played outside the U.S. Raptors President Masai Ujiri was born in Nigeria. There are players from eight different countries — the U.S., along with Canada (Chris Boucher), Spain (Marc Gasol), Britain (OG Anunoby), Cameroon (Pascal Siakam), Congo (Serge Ibaka), Australia (Andrew Bogut) and Sweden (Jonas Jerebko).
“It says a lot that the first NBA Finals outside of America is being played here,” Ujiri said. “Maybe one day it will be real ‘world champions’ or something, but this is what we dream of.”
It’s even a homecoming of sorts for Warriors guard Stephen Curry, again.
His first four trips to the finals pitted him against Cleveland, not far from Akron, Ohio — where he and LeBron James both were born. Toronto has even more direct ties than Cleveland does for Curry; his wife Ayesha was born and raised in Toronto until she was 14, and his father Dell Curry played for the Raptors. So Stephen Curry lived in Toronto for a bit, and went to school there.
“A lot of family history,” Stephen Curry said.
The finals will be aired in 215 countries, three Canadian networks will air the series live (one of them in French), and broadcasters speaking in 50 different languages will work the games. There are a half-dozen networks from Australia, Estonia, Hong Kong and New Zealand airing the finals for the first time.
More of what to know going into this series:
FAREWELL, ORACLE
Game 4 or Game 6 of this series will be the last time the Warriors call Oracle Arena home. The team is moving from Oakland to the new Chase Center in San Francisco next season.
The Warriors have played more than 2,000 games at Oracle, and since this run of NBA Finals appearances began when Steve Kerr took over as coach five years ago they are a staggering 218-40 in their soon-to-be-former home building.
“You cannot tell the story of professional basketball without including Oracle,” said ESPN analyst Mark Jackson, a former Warriors coach. “Those fans have been incredibly loyal from the beginning to the end. … As a former coach, as a former player coming into that building, as an analyst, it’s as good as it gets.”
STILL WAITING
With Toronto now in the finals for the first time, that means there are only six active franchises that still haven’t been to the championship series.
The Los Angeles Clippers, Charlotte Hornets, Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Pelicans and Memphis Grizzlies are still waiting for their first trip to the NBA Finals.
MONEY MATTERS
The Warriors and the Raptors are playing for a little bit of money — $1,295,117, to be exact.
That’s the difference between winning the finals and losing the finals, at least in terms of the take from the NBA playoff pool.
The Warriors are already guaranteed $4,435,312 from the playoff pool; the Raptors have clinched $4,325,888.
This year’s playoff pool was $21,676,510, which all 16 postseason teams shared. No playoff team got less than $323,506. Milwaukee got the most, by far, of any non-finals team — after finishing with the NBA’s best record and reaching the Eastern Conference finals, the Bucks will share $2,516,774.
SECOND TO ONE
Golden State is in the finals for the fifth consecutive year. That’s the second-longest such streak in NBA history, only to Boston’s run of 10 consecutive appearances from 1957 through 1966.
Boston (this time in 1984 through 1987, separate from the 10-straight streak), Miami (2011-2014), Cleveland (2015-2018) and the Los Angeles Lakers (1982-1985) had all reached the finals in four consecutive seasons.
FINISHING STRONG
Even with the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference locked up, the Raptors finished the regular season with a flourish — winning seven of their last eight games.
This was why.
A 58-24 record meant the Raptors finished a game ahead of Golden State’s 57-25 mark, and that’s why Game 1 of this series is in Toronto.
A good omen for the Raptors: Under the current playoff format, teams with home-court advantage in the NBA Finals have ultimately prevailed 26 out of 35 times.
‘NOVA NATION
It’s been a long time since a Villanova player won a championship ring, and even longer since a Villanova player actually played in a series where his team won the title.
Kyle Lowry is looking to change all that.
The Raptors’ point guard — who played for Jay Wright at Villanova — is in the NBA Finals for the first time. He’s looking to be the first Villanova player to win a ring since John Celestand got one with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2000; Celestand didn’t appear in any playoff games that season. The last player from Villanova to actually play in a victorious NBA Finals was Chris Ford with Boston in 1981.
Lowry spoke on the eve of Game 1 about the lessons he learned from Wright that still apply.
“If you make a mistake, apologize, kind of just accept everything,” Lowry said. “Accept everything as a man and bounce back from it. If anything negative, just bounce back, take it and keep going. I think those are the things that stick with me today. I never shy from anything, I never shy from negative criticism, constructive criticism, I take it all, I understand it, learn from it, digest it and move on.”
RECORD CHASING
Stephen Curry already has the NBA Finals record for most 3-pointers made in a career, with 98. He enters this series with 247 attempted 3s in his finals appearances, four shy of tying LeBron James for the most in NBA history.
And while not a record, here is an odd stat: If Shaun Livingston makes his first shot of these finals, he’ll pass Wilt Chamberlain and move into fourth place on the NBA Finals all-time shooting percentage list.
STARTING EARLY
The May 30 start date for these finals is the earliest for the NBA’s title series since 1986, when the Houston-Boston matchup began on May 26.
So the 2019 finals started earlier than has been the norm.
That doesn’t mean they’ll be over early. If they go the distance, they’ll end on June 17 — nine days later than last season’s final game.