Raptors ‘Klaw’ their way to victory in Game 4 of NBA Finals

Kawhi Leonard scored 36 points as the Toronto Raptors defeated the Golden State Warriors 105-92 in Game 4 of the NBA Finals.

Toronto leads the series 3-1 and can win their first NBA title with a win on Monday night in Toronto.

It was the 14th time that Leonard hit the 30-point mark during these playoffs.

Pascal Siakam scored 19 for the Raptors while Serge Ibaka chipped in with 20 points off the bench. The Raptors are 8-0 in playoff games in which Ibaka scores 10 or more points.

“We’re going to get back there and as you know they’re going to be going crazy in Toronto,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “My message to them is we’ve never really talked about the series score. You can’t let people take you to some places you aren’t (at) yet.”

Klay Thompson, who returned after missing Game 3 with an injury, scored 28 points and Stephen Curry, who had a playoff career-high 47 points on Wednesday, scored 27 for the Warriors who lost back-to-back games at home for the first time since last December.

Toronto is the first team to win three games at Oracle in the same season since the 1994-95 Seattle SuperSonics.

Trailing by as many as 11 points in the first half, the Raptors roared back with 37 points in the third, outscoring the Warriors by 16 points in the frame. Leonard had two straight threes to kick-start the quarter, then Marc Gasol’s jumper 1:29 into the quarter gave Toronto its first lead since early in the first quarter. The Raptors led 79-67 to start the fourth.

Leonard drilled a three with 8:44 to play to stretch Toronto’s advantage to 16 points. A Curry three-pointer capped a 13-6 Warriors run that sliced the Raptors’ lead to just eight with 2:56 to play. But Siakam made two free throws and then drilled a two before Lowry drove for a layup and the Raptors went back up by 14, sending hundreds of Warriors fans to the exits.

Siakam scored on a mid-range jumper with 52 seconds left, prompting a roaring “Let’s go Raptors!” chant from the Toronto fans in attendance.

Raptors guard Fred VanVleet left the game with just over nine minutes left in the fourth quarter with a cut under his right eye after taking an elbow to the face from Warriors’ Shaun Livingston.

VanVleet was bleeding considerably before heading to the locker room. He received seven stitches but did not suffer a concussion. He also lost a tooth in the contact. VanVleet returnd to the bench for the remainder of the game.

The Warriors are one of nine teams that have come back from a 3-1 deficit in the playoffs, however, that was in the 2016 Western Conference playoffs. They’ve never done it in the NBA Finals and never when they needed to win two road games to win the series.

Relive all the action in Game 4 of the NBA Finals:

CityNews and 680 NEWS reporters are reporting about the game from Toronto, Oakland and Vancouver:

Files from The Canadian Press were used in this report

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