Durant about to get complete vindication
CLEVELAND — You can’t know how it’s going to work out when you push all your chips into the middle of the table. When you place a huge bet on yourself.
When you take a risk that makes people very angry and divides a sport.
But it’s all about to pay off for Kevin Durant. Maybe Friday night. Or early next week.
Durant (barring an inconceivable meltdown) is not only going to lift a championship trophy over his head, but he’s also going to lift the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP trophy.
These have been his Finals. His signature is imprinted on them forever.
“It just looks like he understands this is his moment, this is his time,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “He’s earned it. He’s been in this league for a long time and he’s — I think — at the top of his game at the biggest time.”
Until late in Game 3, the debate about who would be the Finals MVP was an open question. Stephen Curry was definitely in the discussion. If the Cavaliers managed to change the direction of the series, LeBron James was there as well.
Durant locked up the series and the trophy in one magnificent fourth-quarter performance, when he set aside the past and answered his critics. Durant led his team back and sealed the Warriors’ win with seven straight points, including a three-pointer with 45 seconds to play, and two key rebounds.
“We witnessed a closing by Kevin Durant that you can’t prepare for,” Cleveland guard Kyrie Irving said. “It’s just big-time play after big-time play that he was making.
“He was comfortable and we tried to make it as uncomfortable as possible.”
Irving got directly to the point. Durant is not only bigtime, but he is also comfortable. He is where he’s meant to be, playing a style he loves, with a team that’s complete. And, critics be damned, he’s enjoying himself.
“I’m just trying to put everything together for my teammates as far as having confidence, playing smart, playing hard and playing free and with some joy,” Durant said.
Wednesday’s three-pointer that gave the Warriors the lead for good was the fifth time Durant had made a go-ahead shot in the last minute of a playoff game. It was his first since 2013, and in the intervening years, Durant’s reputation had taken a beating. Some said he couldn’t win the big one, that he buckled under pressure.
Durant is shutting up all of those people.
The fact that Durant is doing this against James only enhances his moment. In Game 3, James faded in the final seven minutes. He couldn’t score nor could he close out on Durant on the go-ahead possession. Durant outscored James 14-7 in the fourth quarter. In the series, Durant has outscored the reigning finals MVP 31-11 in the final quarter of the three games.
Durant’s hand-in-glove chemistry with the Warriors — Kerr’s term — has been on display all postseason. His defense has been superb. His passing — such as when he found Klay Thompson open for a three-pointer late in the fourth quarter — is underrated.
When asked about the Warriors’ ball movement, Durant came as close as he ever has to synopsizing exactly why he came to the team as a free agent last summer.
“Basketball’s a rhythm game,” Durant said. “It’s a free-flowing game and you just want to be a part of it. That’s what makes it more and more fun. Guys are moving, you are working together, communicating out there on both ends.
“You see it playing against them and then on TV. And then it’s a different feel when you’re around it every single day. So I’m just trying to do my part and take in as much as I can, learn every day, work as hard as I can and try to help the team and listen to my coaches. And trust they will make us better as a group and make me better as an individual.”
Who wouldn’t want to be a part of it? Watching the Warriors this June makes all the questions about Durant’s decision fade into the background.
On Thursday, Durant was low-key and unwilling to peek around the corner of the season.
“I’m trying not to think too far past today,” he said. “I don’t want to get too far off the goal at hand. They’re still the champions and we’ve got to go take it.”
But this is what he’s here for, to lead the Warriors to another championship and perhaps anchor a dynasty firmly in place.
Even James is admiring of what the Warriors are accomplishing.
“Is it fair? I don’t care, I think it’s great for the league,” James said. “That’s what you want to do. Is it fair the New York Yankees in the ’90s were adding piece after piece after piece? Is it fair that the Cowboys added Deion Sanders?
“It happens. It’s sports. If I become an owner, I’m going to try to sign everybody.”
It’s fair. It’s beautiful basketball. And the big payoff is near.