The Raptors are peaking at right time in pursuit of NBA title

After taking care of home court and levelling the series at 2-2, one might have expected the Toronto Raptors to be at full throttle, looking to race towards the finish line on the back of two straight wins over Milwaukee, something the Bucks experienced just once over the course of the regular season.

Instead, head coach Nick Nurse decided to cool things down a bit. He knows he’s got a veteran team to manage, and that this is a marathon, not a sprint.

“This is a resting and re-energizing part of the playoffs for us, really almost a full day off of the job outside of guys getting their treatments, few guys got some shots that wanted to stay sharp or get their workouts in, but mostly a recuperation day.

“We’re here in Milwaukee at the hotel and we’re off our feet and will remain so for the rest of the evening. We’re good, we know we’ve got a difficult challenge ahead of us, a difficult task, and it’s going to take everybody’s rejuvenated energy and spirit to get the job done.”

In other words, Nurse knew it was going to take a village in Game 5 and he wanted to make sure they got a good night’s rest to heal up and be hungry for more.

The Raptors have shown they’re pretty tough to beat when they figure things out, too, from taking four straight against the Orlando Magic in the first round to three out of four against the Philadelphia 76ers, this is a team that has proven no matter how jumbled the Rubik’s cube, they believe they have the resources to solve it.

Kyle Lowry and Norman Powell foul out in a must-win Game 3 that goes to double overtime? No problem. How about Kawhi Leonard fighting through significant pain in Game 4? His teammates carried him. There was no flinching when the Bucks went up 14 in the first quarter of Game 5, no shaking of the heads when trailing by 11 in the third quarter. They just buckled down and focused on what they need to do to get where they want to go.

From looking as though they might run out of time when needing to win four out of five, they now need one out of two to advance to the franchise’s first ever NBA Finals.

“Experience helps a lot,” Leonard said after the 105-99 Game 5 victory. “You know, just from my input, I've been here before. I've been to the finals, and it's pretty much nothing new that I'm seeing out there. You've just got to have fun with it and enjoy it. Like I told them tonight, we were down 10, I told them to enjoy the moment and embrace it, and let's have fun and love it. This is why we're here.”

These Raptors are here to win a championship and they’re not shying away from it. It has been their stated goal from Day 1 of training camp through the conference finals. And perhaps that’s what’s most refreshing for a franchise too often burdened by the pressure of the chase and maybe too afraid to really shoot their shot, the front office going all-in has helped it become the light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s a light that has become even brighter because of the belief that Leonard brings. It’s easy to go on about him being the best two-way player in the game or an analytics darling, but what has separated him from Giannis Antetokounmpo in this series has been his ability to manage the tempo of the game and his understanding of giving the team exactly what it needs exactly when it needs it.

In Game 3, he willed his team to a win even when his leg was asking him to stop. He couldn’t get lift off his right leg, so he took off with the wrong foot and dunked with the left. In Game 4, he could have sat, but the galvanizing effect of seeing their best player fight through took over and everyone rallied around him. Here in Game 5, he played coy for three quarters and racked up six assists, before going for the kill with 15 fourth-quarter points.

Operating in the periphery? That’s usually Kyle Lowry’s job. Yet, here he is, on the precipice of playing for it all averaging 19.6 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.6 assists while shooting 43.6 percent from deep against the top-seeded Bucks. For the post-season, no one has recovered more loose balls and no one has drawn more charges. Yes, this is Playoff Lowry.

Fred VanVleet has been through all the struggles in the world this season and looked borderline unplayable at times these playoffs. He has remained calm through it all, Nurse has maintained faith all along, and there he was steadying the ship with seven of the most timely 3-pointers that accounted for all of his 21 points in the biggest game in franchise history before the next one.

“It would be a very, very long summer thinking about what could have been or what you could have done, and so we've just got to go out there and have no regrets.” VanVleet said on the heels of his franchise record-breaking performance. “I think we did a great job of that tonight, laying it all on the line, staying locked in, weathering those runs and being able to bounce back.”

There are nights where you can resign yourself to thinking you don’t have it, where there are greater forces at work that simply won’t allow you to perform at your best. For three quarters, Marc Gasol could have fell victim to that. He was scoreless through the first three quarters, and could have hung his head over missing shots he absolutely would make on most nights. His coach even took him out of the game just five minutes into the second half.

Yet, when the fourth quarter came, he gave his team nine minutes they desperately needed. He outplayed Brook Lopez, made life difficult for Antetokounmpo whenever he was switched onto him, and made a massive 3-pointer that pushed the Raptors’ lead to seven with under five minutes remaining. He never panicked and showed the resolve of a champion.

“Playoffs, from a player’s standpoint, they’re not that emotional,” Gasol said when he first arrived in Toronto. “They’re really detail oriented and assertive and aggressive basketball ... It’s more mind over emotion.”

The closer they get to their goal, the more you see it, the more you believe it.

More Raptors coverage from Yahoo Sports