The 2019 Finals have been dominated by the Toronto Raptors up to this point, with them only one game away from hoisting the NBA Championship. More specifically though, these NBA Finals have been dominated by Kawhi Leonard, the Raptors star player. With him dominating the way he has been, many fans can be reminded of Kawhi's last Final's appearance when he destroyed the Miami Heat in 2014 as a member of the San Antonio Spurs. However, there is more to compare between those two Finals the just Kawhi's great run of play.
The first big similarity is the teams that are represented in both Finals. Now the Spurs and Raptors don't have too much in common. The Spurs were already an established winning franchise by the time the 2014 Finals began, winning four titles since 1997. The Raptors had never been to the Finals before this season. The two teams that draw a lot of comparisons were the teams Kawhi faced in both series, the Miami Heat and Golden State Warriors.
Both the Heat and Warriors came into their respective NBA Finals in search of an illustrious three-peat of championships. The Heat won the 2012-13 Finals, one of them against Kawhi and the Spurs, and the Warriors had won 3 out of the last 4 titles. These teams were the best teams in the NBA, the preseason favorite to win the title, and had the best basketball player on the planet on their team, LeBron James and Kevin Durant for the Heat and Warriors respectively. There was no way they were supposed to lose the Finals. So why did they? That leads us to our next similarity. Kawhi Leonard.
Kawhi Leonard was the best player in each of these Finals. He won the 2014 NBA Finals MVP and is expected to win this year's award if the Raptors do end up winning the championship. While his stats from the '14 Finals weren't quite the same as this years, he was still the difference maker that propelled his team to victory. He was especially a difference maker in the teams' road games, which leads us to the final similarity, how the series played out.
Now this one is hard to do since the Finals this year have no been completed, but up to this point, they are both the same. In 2014, Kawhi and the Spurs split the first two games in San Antonio. Then, against all odds, won two straight games on the road in convincing fashion with the dynasty now one game away from their season and three-peat chances close to ending.
This year, Kawhi and the Raptors split the first two games in Toronto, followed by dominating performances by the Raptors on the road to take a 3-1 series lead, bringing the dynasty that much closer to ending. Seem familiar? These two Finals have so much in common that even the series' is playing out the same. It's not just about one player being in the same Finals on different teams, this player is about to end a dynasty in the same way he did before.
Even if the Raptors can't win game 5 tonight, there are still so many similarities between these two Finals past the last point. The Raptors and Kawhi are so close to achieving history and ending a dynasty, just like Kawhi's Spurs did in 2014.
