The NBA Finals start Thursday night with the Warriors playing in Toronto. Here are some numbers, provided by the NBA, to put these Finals in perspective:
1: NBA Finals in which the players need to carry their passports. This one. This is the first NBA Finals played outside the United States. But Toronto has a long history with major-league basketball, even before the Raptors’ 1995 arrival. The first game of the Basketball Association of America (BAA, forerunner of the NBA) was Nov. 1, 1946, when the Toronto Huskies hosted the New York Knickerbockers. The Knicks won 68-66.