The plays from Game 5 of the NBA Finals that everybody will be talking about
Good morning! Here are the plays everybody will be talking about:
The non-foul on Kevin Durant. The Cavs came to play early, taking a 37-33 lead at the end of the first quarter that they stretched to 41-33 early in the second quarter on this fastbreak dunk by LeBron James. But more notably, Durant was not called for a foul on the play. It was not the most egregious foul ever, but he clearly hits LeBron's face and it would have been Durant's third foul of the game. If the foul is called, Durant almost certainly goes to the bench for the most or all of the rest of the half. Instead, the Warriors went on a 28-4 run over the next 7 minutes of game time.
The Andre Iguodala coast-to-coast dunk. The highlight of the 28-4 run for the Warriors was this steal by Durant and the coast-to-coast dunk by Iguodala, which once again shows just how afraid the Cavs would get of the shooters on the fastbreak. Rather than stop the player with the ball, they seemed more worried about Iguodala dishing for a three.
The Tristan Thompson-David West altercation. Perhaps the play that will be most remembered from the series-clinching win was the altercation between Thompson and West on a jump ball. West shoved Kyrie Irving. That's when J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson got involved, leading to a weird encounter in which Thompson and West got extremely close. The internet had a field day with it.
The Kevin Durant three-pointer. The Cavs made a run late in the third quarter and early in the fourth quarter, eventually cutting the Warriors' lead to three points. But when the lead was five, Durant hit a tough step-back three-pointer to stretch it back to eight. It seemed to rejuvenate the Dubs and fire up the crowd as the Cavs would never get closer than six points again and the Warriors were once again the champs.