OAKLAND, CALIF.—“Halfway home,” said a voice in the winning locker room, as the post-game chaos swirled. The Toronto Raptors had just spent a game pinning down an injury-plagued Golden State Warriors team, answering their runs, batting them around without knocking them out until the end. By the end, Steph Curry had been magical, a force of nature. And the Toronto Raptors were two wins from a championship.“So it is what it is, with the guys we got out there, we got to roll with it,” said Golden State’s Draymond Green, who played 41 minutes in Toronto’s 123-109 win in Game 3 of the NBA Finals. “We fought tonight. We lost. We’re going to fight again. I don’t really see us losing too many more, though, but we’re going to fight again. So it is what it is.”The Warriors can only afford two more, and the series is nearly Toronto’s to lose. Golden State went all-in on superstars in 2016, adding Kevin Durant and sacrificing depth from a 73-win team that blew a 3-1 lead in the Finals; they had lost one game in two Finals since, until this year. Now, they have lost two. With Durant still out with his strained right calf, and Klay Thompson sidelined by a left hamstring strain, Curry went for 47 points on 31 shots, eight rebounds, seven assists, six threes. And it wasn’t nearly enough.“Any injury in the playoffs is tough, but especially a guy like Klay who’s been so durable his whole career and especially in the playoffs, and the way he had been playing as of late,” said Curry. “So it’s no secret that we’re a little injury-plagued now.“We can play better, obviously better on the defensive end, but I liked the competitiveness that we had, understanding that we’re missing 50 points pretty much between K.D. and Klay. So we’ll adjust. And it’s a long series, you know. It’s going to be fun for us.”Maybe it’s the justifiab ...
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