Toronto Raptors won the 2019 NBA Finals and made history for their franchise. When Game 6 played out on the evening of Thursday, June 13, great honor went to the Toronto Raptors. In beating the Golden State Warriors four games to two, they took the NBA championship outside the US for the first time.

And while they lost their campaign following the Playoffs and Finals series that heavily wore down their roster, the Warriors did have a bittersweet historical moment at the Oakland’s Oracle Arena. It was their last game in that venue and city. Next season, they move to the Chase Center, San Francisco.

Critical injury dooms Warriors

NBC News has it that the Toronto Raptors put the final nail in the coffin for the weakened and battered two-time defending NBA champions, the Golden State Warriors in this year’s Finals series. With a close score of 114 to 110, they will be bringing the championship to Canada. Their Game 6 triumph came across as a rebuttal of sorts to their failed attempt to win Game 5 last Sunday when the Warriors pushed back thanks to the momentary assistance of Kevin Durant.

And while having two games of the series felt good for morale, the cost was more than Golden State could stand. Durant had re-injured himself in the previous game, counting him out of this one. The burden of scoring against the Toronto was in the hands of Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry, but a knee injury in the third quarter saw Thompson out of the game, signaling the end was in sight for the Raptors at the Warriors’ expense.

As the two teams clashed in Oakland, Toronto had to close several streets downtown as the hometown crowd went out in force to await NBA history.

Toronto endures through multiple lead changes

While the Toronto Raptors led in quarterly scoring in all but Q3, lead changes in Game 6 proper were fast and furious as the Golden State Warriors gave pretty much what they had left.

As CBS Sports tells it, with 18 seconds left in Q4, Toronto actually was down to a single-point advantage. Stephen Curry tried a three-pointer to put the Warriors up but failed, and Kawhi Leonard contributed the free throws that gave more space to the final score. The fact that Golden State managed to even get that close to Toronto following Klay Thompson’s injury-mandated exit was proof that the defending champions never quit until the buzzer sounded.

Thompson (30 points) and Andre Iguodala (22), were the top Golden State scorers for this concluding game in the 2019 NBA Finals. Their Toronto counterparts were the quartet of Kyle Lowry and Pascal Siakam (26 points each), along with Leonard and Fred VanFleet (22 each). This is the first time a Canadian team brought a major-league pro basketball title home, as attested in this congratulatory tweet from their border control.
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