Can the Raptors beat the Golden State Warriors? Most experts seem to think it’s unlikely. Will Kawhi Leonard stay in Toronto after this season? An awful lot of people seem to be picturing him in a Clippers or Lakers uniform. The rush of reaching the first NBA final in franchise history is still fresh, the opening game of the series still a day away, yet there’s no shortage of ways to start catastrophizing what lies ahead.

Who wants to do that?

“You’ve just got to have fun with it and enjoy it,” Leonard told his teammates when they were behind against Milwaukee and the stress might have been highest. “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.”

As Bruce Arthur wrote recently, it’s a message not just for teammates but for a hope-wary city. Tomorrow will bring what it brings, but the reason we love this team and this stuff is happening now. Have fun. For a change.

I read this bit of municipal diagnosis in Friday’s Washington Post: “The failures of their sports teams, so passionately followed and so consistently disappointing, seeped into the city’s psyche.”

There, from afar, the writer seemed to be accurately summing up Toronto in the past two decades of major pro sports futility. With apologies to the Argos and Toronto FC who’ve done their part and delivered euphoria for their fans, in the sports where our teams compete against the best competition in the world it’s been a long run without a championship. There was Joe Carter’s walkoff home run, and then: So many moments of hope and optimism, playoff runs, bat flips, draft picks, high sticks ... so much heartbreak in the end.

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Yet the Post, it turns out, wasn’t talking about Hogtown, but Beantown. It was describing the fading memory of how it used to be in Boston, before they became the town that just wins everything most of the time (as Leafs fans know all too intimately). Twelve championship parades in 17 years. Reigning champions of the NFL, MLB and into the final in the NHL (again). (“End The Drought! 104 Days Since Boston’s Last Championship,” a billboard in town recently read.)

And from that vantage point, the Post reports, things have changed. Now, Boston suffers from a different neurosis: they are worn out by winning. They’re “suffering from Championship Fatigue Syndrome.”

Ouch. Yeah, we don’t have that problem here in Toronto. We maybe suffer from the opposite. Heartbreak Fatigue, and Expectationsphobia, caused by so many raised hopes dashed, so many times. Kerry Fraser missed the call. It was 4-1. The Royals figured David Price out. Graduation Day. LeBron. LeBron. LeBron.

The 2019 Raptors, powered by Kawhi Leonard’s superhuman skills and Kyle Lowry’s oh-so-human heart, are making another bid to change that. The NBA final, in Toronto for the first time. How magical has it already been? A four-bounce moment for the ages in The Shot. Coming back from down 2-0 in the conference final — and then down double digits in the third quarter, twice — against the best regular season team and likely MVP. How can you not love this team? How can you not believe in this team?

Well, about belief: the effect of all that local history is to make a fan recoil instinctively from any heightened expectations. You reach a point where the idea of a championship seems only a theoretical concept — more a taunt than a promise. Every silver lining has a dark cloud, the shadow caused by the certainty that ultimately, it doesn’t end well.

And then there are the Golden State Warriors looking to extend a generational dynasty coming up next. Toronto fans were still dancing (peacefully, but ecstatically) in the streets when Vegas oddsmakers basically predicted the Raptors are in for a rout.

Plus you have all these analysts and commentators endlessly speculating about where Leonard will play next season, basically predicting he’s one-and-done in this place. As if the contests to actually decide the championship are a perfunctory formality to look beyond in anticipation of the excitement of free-agent frenzy.

You look ahead, and there it is: your heartbreak fatigue, your hope aversion kicking in. But forget that. Looking ahead and making predictions and setting expectations is what you do in the off-season when there are no games to get your heart pumping and breaking and soaring. These games are what it’s all about.

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Which brings us back around to Leonard’s live-in-the-moment wisdom, which his teammates cited as a guiding source of inspiration to the Raptors and makes him, as one ESPN writer said, an unlikely “mindfulness guru.” Put it on a needlepoint and hang it above the backboard. It’s good advice for the players, and for fans, and more broadly for life in general.

This week Kawhi Leonard is a Raptor. This week, his team is playing for the NBA title, beginning right here at home in Toronto. It’s an unfamiliar feeling in these parts. It’s hard to imagine growing tired of it.

What a moment to enjoy. Have fun with it. Love it. Let’s go.