It’s 1-0, Canada: Siakam scores 32 as Raptors win Game 1

Raptors control opener

against favored Warriors

Associated Press

TORONTO

Pascal Siakam scored a playoff career-high 32 points and the Toronto Raptors won the first NBA Finals game played outside the U.S., beating the Golden State Warriors 118-109 on Thursday night.

The Raptors hardly looked like newcomers to the NBA’s biggest stage, controlling the action most of the way against a Golden State team beginning its fifth straight NBA Finals appearance.

Kawhi Leonard added 23 points and Marc Gasol had 20 for the Raptors.

Stephen Curry scored 34 points and Klay Thompson had 21 for the Warriors, who had won all four Game 1s in the last four years. All those had come at home, but this time Golden State doesn’t have home-court — or home country — advantage.

Game 2 is Sunday night in Toronto, which is hosting an NBA Finals game for the first time after the Raptors entered the league as an expansion team in 1995.

The Raptors were perhaps a little jittery at the start, with Kyle Lowry firing a pass well out of bounds on their first possession.

But they quickly settled in afterward, building a 10-point lead by halftime, surging to an 18-11 lead before the Warriors came right back with eight in a row.

Siakam then went 6 for 6 in the third quarter to keep Golden State from gaining much ground, and the Raptors kept their lead around double digits for much of the final quarter.

All four of the Warriors’ previous finals were against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, and they struggled to figure out a new opponent. Toronto shot 50.6 percent from the field and the Warriors never found an answer for Siakam, the finalist for Most Improved Player.

The player nicknamed Spicy P was red hot, shooting 14 for 17 from the field — and he tipped in his own shot on the last of those misses with 54 seconds to play.