Highlights

Breakfast Special: Golden State Bluesmobile

- by Fox Doucette

The Golden State Warriors always prided themselves on “strength in numbers”, but the only numbers anyone’s counting in Oakland as the team prepares to depart across the Bay next season are the ones on the potential lost free agent contracts for Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson.

Durant suffered what history says will be a career-ending injury to his Achilles in Game 5, while Thompson, after scoring 30 points, collapsed in a literal sense down the stretch when his ACL finally said “no mas” in his left knee.

Although, to Klay’s credit, holy crap:

Meanwhile, after making a clutch free throw following the Warriors pulling a Chris Webber and calling a timeout they didn’t have, Kawhi Leonard and his 22 points on 7-of-16 shooting claimed his second Finals MVP and almost assuredly punched his ticket to the Hall of Fame to the degree he wasn’t already generally agreed to be a future Hall of Famer.

Leonard became only the third player to win Finals MVP with two different teams. The other two are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and LeBron James. When you’re in company like that, “see you in Springfield” becomes a natural response.

The Raptors got one of the weirdest scoring breakdowns in any NBA game, never mind a Finals-clinching Game 6 114-110 win on the road.

Pascal Siakam had 26 points, Kyle Lowry had 26, Leonard and Fred VanVleet each had 22, Serge Ibaka had 15, and Marc Gasol had 3. End of list.

Even with the shortened benches common to Finals games (only Danny Green and Norman Powell even got into the game besides the six guys mentioned, and neither scored), that’s a wacky breakdown for a professional game.

Meanwhile, Draymond Green put up his sixth triple-double of the Finals (11 points, 19 rebounds, 13 assists) and averaged 13.3 points, 10.1 rebounds, and 8.5 assists in this postseason. You gotta hand it to him.

Last highlights of the season before the long, sad summer begin with Pascal Siakam:

Remember when everyone was calling Fred VanVleet trash during the first two games of the Bucks series?

It’s hard to look at Kyle Lowry’s story without wanting to smile for the guy. He was loyal, played his heart out, and finally got the chip:

Kawhilights:

And the Serge In General:

What a wild game, what a playoffs, what a season. With the circus having been swept into the dustbin of history, the NBA is truly the greatest show on earth.

You may be wondering what’s next for Pace and Space. Well, for one thing, I’ll be talking draft and free agency throughout June and into July, but between July and September, I’ll be getting some Summer Reading out on the semi-regular (it’ll be Thursdays and/or Sundays during the offseason—stay tuned to @RealFoxD on Twitter for updates.)

Season previews for 2019-20 start up on September 4, the Wednesday after Labor Day, and will as always cover one team per weekday before finishing up on Opening Day in October. I’ve also got a couple of other projects I’m kicking around in my head that I’ll probably tease here if anything comes of them.

But maybe my favorite stat of the whole season? How about the nearly 14,000 of you who consumed over 27,000 reads on this tiny corner of the Internet since the first day of season previews back on September 5 of last year? Or the over 50,000 reads since the relaunch on this WordPress server back in 2017?

There is nothing better as a writer than knowing people are reading and enjoying your stuff. The best is yet to come, so…say it with me…

Stay tuned and thanks for reading!

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