OAKLAND, Calif. -- When the Toronto Raptors emerged from the visitors locker room at halftime of Game 4 of the NBA Finals trailing the Golden State Warriors by only four points -- despite being badly outplayed in the opening 24 minutes -- they knew they had a chance.

Kawhi Leonard then made sure they took full advantage of it.

A stunning display to open the third quarter -- Leonard opened the scoring with a 3-pointer over Draymond Green, then stole the ball from Green, dribbled it up and made a second 3-pointer over his outstretched arm -- erased that deficit in a span of 16 seconds, and it gave Toronto its first lead of the game.

By the time the quarter was over, Leonard had scored 17 of his 36 points in the quarter alone, blowing the game open almost single-handedly as the Raptors claimed a 105-92 victory over the Warriors.

Toronto now has a commanding 3-1 lead in this best-of-seven series, and it can claim its first championship with a win back at Scotiabank Arena in Game 5 on Monday night.

"Kawhi Leonard came out and hit two big F-you shots to start the half," Raptors teammate Fred VanVleet said. "There's no defense for that. There's no schemes for that.

"Two big-boy shots we came out of the half with, two back-to-back 3s ... that just kinda let you know how we were gonna approach the third quarter and the rest of the half."

Time and again during these playoffs, Leonard has delivered for Toronto. His efforts in Game 4 in the Eastern Conference semifinals in Philadelphia allowed the Raptors to survive that game, before his incredible series-ending buzzer-beater in Game 7 allowed them to advance. Switching onto Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals swung that series in Toronto's direction, as the Raptors swept the final four games to advance to their first NBA Finals.

But his performance Friday night -- those 36 points on 11-for-22 shooting, including 5-for-9 from 3-point range, to go with 12 rebounds, 2 assists, 4 steals, a block and no turnovers in 40 minutes -- might have been his very best yet.

Part of that is because of the magnitude of the moment, as the Raptors found themselves staring at a chance to put a stranglehold on this series. And part of it is because of the degree of difficulty with which Leonard was presented. The Warriors, desperate to prevent this from being the final game at Oracle Arena, came out playing suffocating defense in the first quarter, and they quickly jumped out to a 23-12 lead.

But while his teammates combined to go 1-for-13 in the opening 12 minutes, scoring a total of three points, Leonard went 5-for-8 and scored 14 by himself, allowing the Raptors to end the quarter, somehow, trailing only 23-17.

"I mean, at the same time, I knew I had faith that it was going to turn around for us," Leonard said. "We were missing a lot of wide-open shots."

That faith was well-placed, as Leonard missed all four shots he took in the second quarter, but the rest of the Raptors went 9-for-17 to allow Toronto to go into the break trailing by only those four points, setting the table for his third-quarter explosion that put the game away.

Leonard finished the third quarter with those 17 points, powering the Raptors to a 37-21 advantage in the quarter that allowed Toronto to take a 79-67 lead into the fourth quarter. It was a performance that had the feel of a heavyweight boxer hitting an opponent in the body with one power shot after another, as Leonard went 5-for-8 from the field and another 5-for-5 from the foul line to slowly but surely pound the Warriors into submission.

It was especially jarring because the third quarter is typically when the Warriors take off.

This time, Toronto beat Golden State at its own game.

"Kawhi's two big 3s to start the half really, I thought, changed the whole feel of everybody," Toronto coach Nick Nurse said. "I just thought everybody was like, 'OK, man, we know we are here. Let's go.'

"We just kind of kept going from [there]."

At times in the fourth quarter, the Warriors made mini-runs to begin to cut the deficit. But at every turn, the Raptors did what they have done so many other times during these playoffs: respond to a big play by an opponent with one of their own.

By the time it was over, so many guys had stepped up. Serge Ibaka had 20 points off the bench, going 9-for-12 from the field. Pascal Siakam recovered from an ugly first half by scoring 13 points in the second and finishing with 19 in the game. VanVleet continued to play strong defense on Stephen Curry, who scored 27 points but shot 9-for-22 overall and 2-for-9 from 3-point range. The Raptors' guard had to leave the game in the fourth quarter after taking an inadvertent elbow to the head from Shaun Livingston that required seven stitches. Toronto committed only 11 turnovers and forced Golden State into 19.

Nothing, though, could match what Leonard did. And, thanks to his latest sublime showing, and yet another piece of evidence in an ever-growing number of them declaring that he has become, in fact, the best player in the world, Toronto has moved to within one win of a championship few could see coming.

Don't think, though, that the Raptors are going to start celebrating just yet.

"We didn't do nothing yet," Toronto guard Kyle Lowry said. "We haven't done anything. We won three games.

"It's the first to four. We understand that. They're the defending champs, and they're not going to go out easy. They're going to come and fight and prepare to play the next game, and that's how we're preparing ourselves.

"We got to prepare ourselves to play the next game. We haven't done anything yet."

OAKLAND, Calif. -- The Golden State Warriors were down 15 late in the fourth quarter, and the sounds from the Oracle Arena crowd were edging from disbelief to silence. Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala were bent at the waist, gassed, clutching their shorts for ballast. Steve Kerr sat on the bench, hands threaded, looking like a man who was out of ideas. You didn't even need the scoreboard; the body language told you everything.

When the Toronto Raptors took a two games to one lead in the NBA Finals with a Game 3 win at Oracle, the Warriors reacted with a shrugging defiance. They were a compromised team about to get closer to whole. They were champions. They had overcome worse situations against better teams -- none of this was a big deal.

But after the Raptors won Friday's Game 4 -- convincingly, 105-92 -- to take a 3-1 series lead, the defiance evaporated, replaced by a grudging acknowledgment. For the Warriors to win their third straight title, it's going to take something spectacular -- and something they have shown no signs of possessing.

It has been a balky and theme-less series, but in Game 4, something happened that would have seemed unfathomable two weeks ago. The Warriors, up by four at halftime, were outscored by 16 points in the third quarter. The Raptors pressured them on defense, double-teamed Curry and attacked on offense, getting open shots and easy pick-and-roll baskets.

In short, the Raptors out-Warriored the Warriors.

"The third quarter got away from us," Shaun Livingston said. "But I think in the first half -- first quarter especially -- we had a couple of stretches where we didn't capitalize, and they were always in striking distance. That's dangerous when you're playing a team with that kind of firepower. They got hot in the third quarter, and it got away from us."

This has been the leaguewide refrain since the Warriors won their first title five years ago. Every team in the league has felt the blast-furnace rush of a Golden State run and been powerless to stop it. No timeout, no play call, no defensive adjustment proved to be a reliable deterrent. And now here the Warriors are, one game from elimination, sounding as if they're playing against a former version of themselves.

"They found a rhythm," Draymond Green said, "and once a team like that finds a rhythm, it's hard to get them out of it."

The night started with such promise. Thompson, whose presence represented the physical manifestation of the Warriors' hopes, took the court a little more than 50 minutes before the game. The Oracle Arena crowd, desperate to carry the final days of the arena to their latest possible conclusion, cheered wildly when he came out of the tunnel and again nine minutes later when he raised his arms and went back to the locker room.

After missing Game 3 because of a hamstring strain, Thompson scored 28 points on 11-of-18 shooting in a remarkable 42 minutes. Backup center Kevon Looney was back too -- somehow -- after missing Game 3 because of a broken bone near his right collarbone that was previously diagnosed as season-ending. Although he was struggling by the end, Looney scored 10 points and had six rebounds in an inspiring 20 minutes. But Kevin Durant, whose return is eternally pending, was once again watching the game from the locker room, his calf injury still not deemed fit for duty.

Durant's situation remains perplexing, with Kerr admitting before the game that the medical updates and prognostications have "gone haywire." The prospect of his return was viewed as the fastest and surest way for the Warriors to even -- and then win -- the series, and the pregame buildup had led to the expectation that Game 4 would be his logical return. His absence, and a future looking murkier by the day, instead added another layer of resignation.

"There's been hope that he will come back the whole series," Green said. "Obviously, we hope to have him, but we'll see what happens. ... His body will tell him if he can get out there or not. And if he can, great. And if not, you still got to try to find a way to win the next game."

Through four games, the Raptors have shown remarkable resilience. And so this never felt like typical Warriors dominance -- not even when Golden State built an 11-point first-quarter lead with every Raptor but Kawhi Leonard missing shots. During a particularly heinous stretch late in the first quarter, coach Nick Nurse called a timeout, surging from the bench as if he just might leave the building. Nurse -- the master of angst, the maestro of the dropped head and the slumped shoulders -- got about eight steps toward the tunnel before reconsidering. He turned as if heeding the call of a drill sergeant and began clapping his hands as if he'd come to the sudden realization that everything was going to be all right. Leonard, probably the least loquacious man in the building, put it this way: "Have faith, and not put our head down."

The tightened focus of the Finals creates a constant gush of speculation: who's up and who's down, the indispensable and the disposable. It has been an uneven series, and there are so many fascinating figures:

• DeMarcus Cousins, eager but diminished, constantly a step behind the action

• Iguodala, the statesman, playing 38 minutes

• Leonard, the man who manages to go beyond stoicism to some unexplored realm of engaged indifference

• Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet, linebackers in constant pursuit of Curry

Kerr was asked where the Warriors go from here, and he gave the only appropriate answer: "We go to Toronto, and we try to win a game."

This building might be finished -- and the Golden State dynasty along with it. The teams' identities have been switched like a clumsy plot twist. The Warriors are the team playing to keep the Raptors from running away with a massive lead. The Raptors are winning games with strong third-quarter offense and walking off the court like resolute pioneers determined to find the first title for franchise and country.

And somewhere, amid the maze of the arena's underbelly, Durant watches, his absence every bit as powerful as his presence. We're always eager to let what happens next determine the meaning of what happened before, but it took four games for this series to develop a theme: Nobody really knows anything.

Seattle Mariners center fielder Mitch Haniger was placed on the 10-day injured list on Friday with a ruptured testicle after hitting himself with a foul ball Thursday.

Reliever Tayler Scott is being called up from Triple-A Tacoma to take Haniger's spot on the roster. Mac Williamson replaced Haniger in Seattle's lineup Friday against the Angels.

Haniger suffered the injury in the third inning of Thursday's loss to the Houston Astros but didn't leave until the seventh inning. Haniger, who began the season on a tear, is struggling at the plate -- his average has dropped to .220, and he leads the American League in strikeouts with 81. He has 15 homers, 32 RBIs and 46 runs scored.

MIAMI -- Left-hander Dallas Keuchel says he doesn't expect to need much time tuning up in the minors before he joins his new team, the Atlanta Braves.

The team confirmed Friday night that the 2015 American League Cy Young Award winner had agreed to a one-year contract. He's scheduled to pitch Saturday for Triple-A Gwinnett.

During a conference call, Keuchel said he has been pitching seven innings in simulated games in Southern California, and he's eager to start pitching for the Braves.

"I'm built up to go five or six innings at least," he said. "There's no concrete timetable, but I would expect, knowing how I operate, it wouldn't be long at all."

The veteran starter will earn $13 million this season, which is prorated from a figure of $21.21 million, sources said, confirming a Yahoo! report.

Keuchel went 12-11 with a 3.74 ERA in 34 starts last season for Houston and turned down a $17.9 million qualifying offer in November.

The two-time All-Star didn't voice any regrets about how things turned out. He joins a Braves team that won the National League East last year and is in the thick of the division race this season.

"They were one of the teams I had pinpointed going into free agency, with how youthful and exciting their team could be," Keuchel said. "I've always been an advocate of this formula -- a great mixture of veteran leadership and young talent. It could become special. Hopefully I can bring a little something extra."

Keuchel is 31. Atlanta's all-28-and-under rotation thus far has been led by 21-year-old rookie right-hander Mike Soroka, who improved to 7-1 with a 1.38 ERA by beating the Miami Marlins on Friday night.

Afterward, Soroka grinned when asked about the acquisition of Keuchel.

"It's a little surreal," Soroka said. "It's exciting when you see a team where we've got so much talent and experience. To add a guy like him hopefully gives us confidence to make a run for it."

Keuchel is 76-63 with a 3.66 ERA in seven major league seasons, all with the Astros.

"He makes everybody better," Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos said. "The innings, the competitiveness, the experience, the winning -- there are not a lot of opportunities to get guys like this. We're real excited."

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

European Athletics vice president among those to receive recognition

Cherry Alexander has been made an OBE for services to elite sport in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

The major events director at British Athletics was recently elected as a vice president of European Athletics and has been involved in the sport for the best part of 40 years.

She was managing director of London 2017, which staged the successful IAAF World Championships and World Para Athletics Championships, and has worked to deliver numerous other major events on UK soil.

Alexander received an MBE at the end of 2012 for services to sport following the significant part she played in the athletics competition delivery during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

“I’ve been very blessed to work in the sport for the best part of 40 years, 20 of which have been for UK Athletics,” she wrote in a recent column for AW.

“During that time I have seen so many parts of the sport change and had some amazing challenges.

“As managing director of London 2017 I was very proud to be involved with the best-ever staging of the IAAF World Championships and World Para Athletics Championships and have had fun supporting and overseeing many of the other world and European level championships the UK has hosted over the last 20 years.”

On being made an OBE, she told British Athletics: “This is a humbling and incredible moment for me and my family and one I am truly grateful for.

“When I do collect the OBE, I will be thinking of my work mates over the years and my family who have supported me and have always accepted it was never ever just going to be a day job!

“Many congratulations to all those in all walks of life who have been recognised in these honours, but especially for those in sport where my heart truly lies.”

Joining Alexander in receiving recognition in the Queen’s Birthday Honours is 1984 Olympic sprint hurdler and former Wales rugby international Nigel Walker who becomes an OBE for services to elite sport, David Campbell who is made an OBE for voluntary service to athletics and Scottish Athletics historian and statistician Arnold Black who becomes an MBE for services to athletics.

Medallist of the Order of the British Empire honours go to John Glover of Athletics Northern Ireland, John Hillier of Blackheath & Bromley, John Pownceby of Schools Athletics Cumbria and Jill Wright for voluntary services.

Coverage of the Golden Fly Series street athletics event in Innsbruck, Austria, on June 8

World indoor long jump champion Juan Miguel Echevarria and European indoor pole vault champion Anzhelika Sidorova are among the athletes set to compete at the Golden Roof Challenge in Innsbruck, Austria, on Saturday (June 8).

The event takes place on a specially designed “FlySwat”, a mobile athletics facility which brings spectators right up close to the action.

The men’s long jump field also includes Britain’s Feron Sayers, Paralympic champion Markus Rehm and South Africa’s Zarck Visser, while the women’s competition includes European indoor silver medallist Nastassia Mironchyk-Ivanova and European indoor and outdoor medallist Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk.

Joining Sidorova in the women’s pole vault is Sweden’s Angelica Bengtsson, Switzerland’s Angelica Moser and Aksana Gataullina, while the men’s competition features Britain’s Charlie Myers, Konstantinos Filippidis and Axel Chapelle.

The event begins at 19:00 local time (18:00 UK) and can be viewed via the below live stream.