Durant wins Finals MVP as Golden State gets revenge to win the NBA Championship in Game 5
Well there you have it. The 2017 NBA season has come to a close as the Golden State Warriors take care of business in game five of the NBA finals winning 129-120 and winning the series four games to one. Kevin Durant and Steph Curry stole the show and were magnificent throughout while scoring seventy of the teams one twenty-nine points and exploding in the second quarter and then having Durant take over the fourth.
Just as the Cavaliers did to start game three and four, they came out fast in game five and pulled out to an early lead. It seemed that they had the Warriors on their heels and a possibility of keeping the momentum going throughout the whole game. However, the Warriors, resilient as they are came all the way back and fought hard. In the second quarter they came out and man handled the Cavaliers while putting up thirty-eight points.
The second quarter was when the Warriors really stuck it to the Cavaliers. Just like games one through four, the Warriors usually use one quarter to bombard the Cavaliers with long range threes, fantastic defense to force fast transition points and extraordinary passes for easy lay ups. They came at the Cavaliers with all they had and kept them to a low scoring quarter with 23 points while pulling out to a fifteen point lead with three minutes left and finally settling with an eleven point lead at halftime.
LeBron James would not let his team get blown out though and kept fighting throughout the third quarter. He put in six tough points, grabbed six rebounds and dished out five assists in this quarter along with Kyrie Irving and JR Smith hitting big shots to pull within five at the end.
However, the fourth quarter in NBA finals games is when great players thrive and Kevin Durant owned the fourth. He scored eleven of the thirty-one points scored as the Warriors had the Cavaliers by the throat and never let go. They hit shot after shot and it seemed like they would not miss again.
The Cavaliers never gave up though and tried their absolute best to keep up with the Warriors’ incredible scoring but even with LeBron James putting up fantastic numbers (41 points, 8 rebounds, 13 assists) it just was not enough. The Cavaliers played their best basketball but it just proves how great the Warriors are. Even with JR Smith finally playing up to his potential knocking down long range shots and scoring twenty-five points including going seven of eight from three-point range and Kyrie Irving doing his thing to contribute (26 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists) they were smothered defensively and could not make long scoring runs to pull away or make a comeback on the Warriors. These guys worked extremely hard and proved they could play and run with the Warriors’ fast pace game, but their bench should take most of the blame for the game five loss.
Outside the starters, the Cavaliers had nothing else going for them and absolutely no contribution from the bench. The Cavaliers bench scored a total of seven points. That is not good enough to beat this Warriors team when their bench scored thirty-five and twenty just coming from Andre Iguodala. No depth in the Cavaliers bench was ultimately their downfall and their greatest weakness throughout this series.
The Warriors, coming into this season had many doubters especially about their bench and their ability to defend. Knowing that they paid a lot for Kevin Durant during last year’s offseason, they had to diminish their bench and trade or cut some players. These players included Harrison Barnes, Andrew Bogut who was huge in the defensive game during last year’s finals before he was injured and Festus Ezeli who was another big man who played defense. Many people claimed that the Warriors would suffer during the 2016/2017 season and would take a year for them to blend in order to be successful. This was not the case however. Instead of taking a year to get everything going and have everyone figure each other out, the Warriors went on one of the greatest tears in NBA playoff history going 15-1. No one could stop them not even LeBron James who is argued to be the best basketball player in this era and even in NBA history.
The Warriors have now proven that a team can change how one can play basketball, change the style of play and add a superstar to an already phenomenal team and not have egos get the best of them. This Warriors team is probably going to be the best team in the history of basketball. It is nothing that anyone has ever seen before and it should be treasured. The Warriors are covered with stars and now that they have won the chip, everyone will get paid for next season and they will come back even stronger so they can defend the title and go out and try to repeat as champions.