Kevin Durant laid his claim to the 2017 NBA Finals MVP, sparking an 11-0 run to finish the game for a 118-113 Golden State win over Cleveland. We make a couple, they miss a couple, and it's the other way around. Seven of those points came from Durant, including this triple with 45 seconds to play to give Golden State the lead for good.
Here are three big takeaways from the Warriors' win, moving them to a flawless 15-0 in this year's playoffs.
"He took over", Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. "He's been an wonderful player in this league for a long time, and he senses this is his time, his moment, his team". They won Game 3 by 30 points and eventually became the first team in National Basketball Association history to recover from a 3-1 deficit to win the Finals.
The Warriors lead the series 3-0 and could win the title in the early hours of Saturday morning with another win in Cleveland.
Still, Durant isn't looking too far ahead.
With all that said, if LeBron does not score at least 40 in every game from here on out, Golden State will be dancing in the confetti in no time at all. I don't want to relax. It's not over. This is a insane game. "Anything can happen. So I don't want to relax or feel like it's over, it's not".
Durant finished with 31 points to lead the Warriors, while Klay Thompson had 30 and Stephen Curry added 26.
The Warriors been on a mission from the minute the buzzer sounded following their NBA Finals collapse previous year, and they only needed to check a few more boxes before claiming the trophy. "We missed some shots, and they made some".
"If you don't win, and someone says he is the best player in the world, what do you get from that?" "I gave everything that I had to this game, so I don't look at it saying I wish I could have did this or I would have did that".
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"I've been wokring on that shot my whole life, and for that one to go in, that's liberating", the forward told ESPN's Doris Goodwin after the game. "So we made enough plays tonight to still win the ball game, but they made a couple more".
They did it exquisitely well in Games 1 and 2; they did it with beauty and precision pretty much the entire season.
"I've played against some great teams, but I don't think any team has had this type of firepower", James said.
Durant, though, was not going to be denied.
There was no question about the entertainment value of much of the game, especially a predictably torrid start for teams that had been off and resting for two days.
The Warriors have outscored Cleveland by 41 points through two games.
Will the Warriors take game 3 or can the Cavaliers hit their stride in front of their home crowd? Broke the record of 14 straight postseason wins previously held by the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins, who did it in 1992-93. If Game 3 were Bambi, that's the moment your parents would turn off the VCR and send you to bed.
The Thunder were up 3-1 on the Warriors in the Western Conference finals and couldn't close it out. Michael Jordan (1,176) is next. Overall they didn't play as well as they did in the first two games of this series, but, led by Durant, they kept their composure when it mattered. He played in 23 for Miami.
The shot, like the series, never was in doubt.
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