The Toronto Raptors are still in the driver’s seat. They’re still in charge. They blew Game 5 of the NBA Finals by missing so many shots that even they couldn’t recover, yes. Last year, after his Cavaliers had somehow escaped a knife-in-its-teeth Indiana team in a Game 7, Kevin Love turned to a Cleveland reporter and winked. “Don’t let us get Game 1,” he said. LeBron and company came to Toronto, stole their first chance, and the Raptors never recovered.Monday night wasn’t that, but it may have been giving oxygen to a flame. The Raptors could have won the franchise’s first NBA championship in Game 5 of the NBA Finals, at home, and missed. Kawhi Leonard had put Toronto up six with 3:28 left with a commanding stretch of basketball, four straight makes, and it looked like the Raptors were there. Kawhi had done it all playoffs long; it seemed to be happening again.But the Warriors are champions, and they escaped. Steph Curry and Klay Thompson bombed threes to tie it, then took a three-point lead with 56.6 seconds left. You don’t take a title from legends easily. Toronto stayed close on a night their three-pointers were casting off sparks, and on a night where Golden State hit 20 three-pointers of their own. Toronto had the ball down one with 15.7 second left, but the possession was a disaster. They couldn’t close.Golden State lost Kevin Durant, and that may extinguish a surprising amount of hope. But the Warriors won Game 5 by a score of 106-105, and are still alive. Toronto is the better team, and has two more chances to finish this. But they failed, this time. They wanted everything, and this time, they couldn’t get it.“I said it in the locker room (after Game 2), trying to kind of not make it feel so bad that we just lost a home game in the Finals. I was like, all we got to do is go get one, that’s maybe not as insurmountable challenge to go out there and get one,” Raptors coach Ni ...
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