True North

This is not the end, not yet. But you can see it from here.

You can see it when the Splash Brothers go for 55 between them -- a little nostalgia riff for these Golden State Warriors -- and it still isn't nearly enough.

You can see it when one of the teams in the NBA Finals so clearly dominates, and it isn't the Warriors.

You can see it when the Toronto Raptors barely shrug at the prospect of playing in the Oracle, where the Warriors have so often been invincible, and win by 14 and then by 13.

The Warriors' dynasty is not dead yet. But it ain't exactly breathin' on its own anymore, either.

Every run in the history of runs eventually meets its end, and if  there's a hint of prisoner-of-the-moment in saying so, this looks an awful lot like the last stop on the line for the Warriors. True, they are without Kevin Durant, but until now they had played their best basketball in these playoffs without him. True, they're missing a few other pieces, and Klay and Steph are banged up, but so is Kawhi Leonard. At this point in the season, everyone's banged up.

Doesn't change the fact the Raptors have so obviously been much the better team in this deal, as the Warriors once were. Doesn't change the fact that, were it not for that flashback sequence in Game 2 when the Warriors reeled off 18 straight points at the start of the third quarter, this series would likely already be over.

That 18-0 burst is pretty much the only thing that separates the Raptors from a Finals sweep.

 A sweep. Of the Warriors, who are playing in their fifth straight Finals and have won three of the last four NBA titles. And who came into the Finals as the heavy favorite this time, too.

I don't know how you can contemplate that and not hear the dropping of a curtain in it, not see a particular era taking its final bows.

This being the NBA, all of the above may of course be a mere fantasy. There is no such thing as momentum in the NBA playoffs, no such thing as continuing. And so you could almost make book on the Warriors going into that delirious snakepit in Toronto and winning Game 5. And then winning Game 6. And then going back to Toronto to pull off the impossible.

It could happen. The Warriors have come off the deck to make it happen numerous times. It just doesn't feel like it's going to happen this time, though.

No, sir. It feels like the end, is what it feels like. It feels like the compass has swung around, and now points in another direction.

True north.