Thunder stay alive with stunning comeback
Utah Jazz suffered the third-biggest collapse in NBA playoffs history yesterday after failing to repel a scoring surge led by Steven Adams’ Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Thunder won game five of seven 107-99 to stay alive in the series, down 3-2. That did not appear the likely result in the third quarter, with the Jazz holding a 25-point lead on the Thunder’s home court and some disheartened Oklahoma fans leaving the arena early.
The game changed when Jazz coach Quin Snyder benched centre Rudy Gobert with nine minutes left in the third quarter when he picked up his fourth foul. With the 2.16m Frenchman out, Russell Westbrook and Paul George went on a scoring rampage. By the end of the third quarter, the scores were locked up 78-78.
“Our team did a great job staying together,” said Westbrook, who led the revival with 45 points and 15 rebounds. “Going downhill and staying in attack mode is key for us.”
George added: “We just never quit. I can’t pinpoint one thing we did wrong. We just never got down on ourselves, regardless of the lead they built and the shots they were making. We could surge back and we did.”
George had 34 points and eight rebounds for the game and New Zealand centre Adams was strong, with six points and six rebounds, playing 41 minutes.
The sides will now head to Utah for game six tomorrow afternoon (NZT).
The winner of the Jazz-Thunder series will play the NBA’s top-seeded Houston Rockets, who eliminated the Minnesota Timberwolves in Houston with a 122-104 victory to take the series 4-1 yesterday.
In Cleveland, LeBron James hit a three-pointer at the buzzer, a crowning moment for another brilliant performance, to give the Cavaliers a 98-95 victory over the Indiana Pacers in game five of their series, putting the Cavaliers within one victory of advancing in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Moments after blocking Victor Oladipo’s possible go-ahead driving lay-up, James caught the inbound pass, took two dribbles and dropped the winner over Thaddeus Young.
As Cleveland’s sellout crowd exploded, James hugged rookie teammate Cedi Osman before jumping on the scorer’s table to celebrate another of those moments that will define his career. James finished with 44 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists and went 15 of 15 from the line.
Kyle Korver added 19 points and Cleveland’s much-maligned defence tightened just in time as the Cavaliers seized their first lead in the first-round series after being down 1-0 and 2-1.
Cleveland can eliminate the Pacers with a win tomorrow in Indianapolis.
The Toronto Raptors beat the Washington Wizards 108-98 to take a 3-2 series lead. DeMar DeRozan scored 32 points and Kyle Lowry had 17 for the win, with game six in Washington tomorrow. — AAP