The Finals of Fun
By his own admission, Kawhi Leonard is a fun guy.
Of fun things Kawhi does, there are many. He likes basketball. He likes geometry. He likes wings. These are all fun hobbies, except for the geometry. Still, to each their own. As someone who has spent 10,000 hours modding Skyrim, who am I to crucify a man for squaring a hypotenuse.
The shoe fits, even if it's made by a company championed by my dad, who eats his pizza with a fork. Steph Curry is a physics man, shooting the ball and bending the court with his Newtonian gravity and motion. Kawhi, on the other hand, made his bones as a defender, and defense is more of a geometry thing. You need to understand the angles to beat your man to a spot, or pull off the Draymondian magic trick of covering an entire court while guarding no one at all.
Kawhi is a fun guy on offense too. He likes to ISO. He likes to jab step. He likes free throws.
Maybe not in the way the James Harden likes free throws, his porn folder full of violated landing spaces, but he likes them. And just so you know, the NBA does not kink shame. You say free throws are boring. The score begs to differ.
All of this is to say, be prepared. On a scale of 1 to Damian Jones, if I had to put an over/under on fouls called on Alfonzo McKinnie, I would put it in the neighborhood of 3.5. Per half.
Yet despite some Harden and Hoodie Melo tendencies, and a personality that is best described by adding an "et" to his name, Kawhi's game speaks with a ferocity and determination that is in all sincerity, fun. I don't know if he's a fun guy, but he is without a doubt a fun guy to watch.
The Raptors are a fun team too. They are built for the playoffs in the modern sense, long and skilled and athletic with marginal weaknesses. The Warriors may have more top end talent, but on paper, the Raptors have more depth, having no use for the very players Steve Kerr would literally kill a man to sub in. And I mean that, literally. If, in the year that shall not be named, the Warriors hired a security guard to prevent Anderson Varejao from entering the game, Kerr would wrap his hands around the man's neck and snap it like a clipboard just to get his boy Andy some run.
And what better bellwether for the benches in this series than Patrick McCaw, who would play 10 minutes a game for the Dubs but can't get off the Raptors' pine (assuming, of course, he doesn't hold out the entire Finals to negotiate a minimum salary, non-guaranteed 7-year contract to sit in the Upper Bowl with team options for all 7 years).
All that is to say the depth will matter. It took Houston to put the fear of god into Kerr, to shorten his rotation and go full D'Antoni. It was a decision many of us agreed with, hell, have been demanding ever since the Ezeli incident in the year we do not speak of. Only that strategy is impossible with Durant out. Shit, that strategy may be the reason Durant is out. So no more eye rolls and jerk off motions when Kerr goes full Strength in Numbers. As much as I like to poke fun, he's doing a phenomenal job.
Even so, the reality is they are making the best of a compromised roster. After each game, there are going to be names on the box score not everyone will recognize. And those minutes are always fun.
Thankfully the points scored by the starters count too. It was one of Dr. Naismith's better ideas, a staple rule of the game along with the hole at the bottom of the basket and no tackling unless it's Steph Curry off the ball. Ancient as they are, all these rules will still factor into the outcome of this NBA Finals of Fun.
It's that core group that I will rely on when I'm having a panic attack halfway through Game 1. Experience is what I hope will win the day, and the series. As someone whose mind and body turns to tofu at even the slightest whiff of pressure, I know firsthand its twisted alchemy.
No one is immune to it, but as a wise man in a movie once said, there is no courage without fear. Championship teams stay solid when the pressure erupts, while their opponents are left choking in its sweeping wall of ash. It makes you think, if only the people of Pompeii had an unguardable plan of split actions and Steph/Draymond pick and rolls, maybe they would've survived the worst of it. After all, the sample size grows larger with each game.
Then again, we didn't know the Warriors were the Warriors in 2015. Turns out they were. The Raptors may thrive under pressure too. So at the end of the day, I don't know who will win. There are too many variables at play, a known unknown. But I have believed since 2007, and I have no reason to stop believing now.
The doubt is still there, sure. But that's half the fun.