The 2019 Toronto Raptors

Our sports culture guide covers We The North as a slogan. This page is about the single run that turned it into something closer to a permanent civic identity: the Toronto Raptors' 2019 championship.

The buzzer-beater

On May 12, 2019, in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against Philadelphia, Kawhi Leonard hit a shot that bounced on the rim four times before dropping through — the first Game 7 buzzer-beater in NBA playoff history, sending Toronto to its first-ever Eastern Conference Finals appearance. Leonard finished the game with 41 points on 39 shot attempts, the most field goal attempts in a Game 7 in NBA history.

Beating Golden State for the title

The Raptors went on to beat the Golden State Warriors — a team that had reached five straight NBA Finals — four games to two, clinching the championship on June 13, 2019 with a 114–110 win. It made Toronto the first team based outside the United States ever to win an NBA championship.

A record-breaking parade

The victory parade five days later drew an estimated one to two million people into downtown Toronto — organizers themselves weren't certain of the exact final count, only that it exceeded expectations by a wide margin, making it among the largest single-day public gatherings in Canadian history. Roughly 56% of the entire Canadian population watched at least part of the Finals on TV, a genuinely national audience for what had, for most of the franchise's history, been a regional sport.

Sources

• CBC News — Kawhi Leonard Hits Buzzer Beater for Wild Series Win Over Sixers
• Forbes — Toronto Raptors Draw Massive Crowds to Victory Parade and Rally
• Wikipedia — 2019 Toronto Raptors Championship Parade

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