With 2:45 left in game three of the NBA Finals, the Golden State Warriors were down to the Cleveland Cavaliers 113-107 and it looked like Cleveland would defend home court. By the time the game was over the Warriors had taken the victory away with an 118-113 win after Kevin Durant took over the end of the ballgame.
How the game was won
History was seemingly against the Golden State Warriors in this game, as the team had been 0-12 over the last 40 postseasons in games where they were outscored by 10 or more points in the third quarter. Kevin Durant had never won an NBA Finals road game.
Kyrie Irving had just dropped 19 in the third quarter, while Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Durant combined for 6 points.
Then in the last 2:45 of the fourth quarter, Durant came alive. He went 3-3 from the field and 2-2 from the free throw line to score 9 straight points and seal the game. Curry then added the last two free throw to help the Warriors end the game on an 11-0 run. In contrast, the Cleveland Cavaliers scored 0 points over that span and were 0-8 shooting. Now, the Cavaliers are in a giant 0-3 hole, in which NBA teams are historically 0-126. There have only been three occasions where a team down 0-3 has forced a game seven and the only time it happened in the NBA Finals was 1951.
Historical notes from game three
The Golden State Warriors victory last night gave them their 15th playoff win in a row, breaking them out of a tie with the 1992-93 Pittsburgh Penguins for the most in any of the four major sports leagues. Kevin Durant became only the third player in NBA history (Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal) to score 25 or more points in his first 8 NBA Finals games.
This was also the first time in Steph Curry's career that he had at least 20 points and 10 rebounds in back-to-back games. The Warriors also made 9 threes in the first quarter, the most in one quarter in NBA Finals history.
To win the Warriors had to overcome monster games from LeBron James and Kyrie Irving. The two of them combined to be 31-56 shooting with 77 points.
This gave them the most combined points by a duo in an NBA Finals loss. Last night, LeBron also passed Sam Jones, Bill Russell and Elgin Baylor to move into fourth all time in points scored in the NBA Finals and is now only one point behind Michael Jordan. LeBron also became the only player in NBA history to play at least 20 NBA Finals games with two different teams, 23 with the Miami Heat and 20 with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
