In crunch, Curry hits the big ones
OAKLAND, Calif. — These are the shots that break your heart— and worse. These are the moments that buckle your knees, the way Bucky Dent’s home run buckled Old Man Yaz’s knees at The Wall that time, the way the knees of all five members of the Cleveland Cavaliers buckled, simultaneously.
Because this may well have been the shot that finally swayed these NBA Finals once and for all. It’s right that the MVP of the league took that shot. It’s right that with 2 minutes, 43 seconds left in what had been a tense, tight and relentlessly fun game it would come down to this:
Steph Curry, making an inimitable Steph Curry move: Wandering with the ball, looking for something better to develop, not seeing anything, figuring the MVP from 27 feet away is as good an option as anything. Letting it fly. Watching it splash. A seven- point lead was now 10. An otherworldy effort by LeBron James would be reduced to a footnote, one more example of no medals for trying. The Warriors would win this pivotal Game 5 104- 91, they will try to extend Cleveland’s run of heartbreak by another year starting Tuesday ( with Game 7, if they need it, still waiting for them back at Oracle Arena on Friday).
This was a glorious moment for the MVP, a spectacular moment for this title- starved basketball city, but it was something else, as well: This was the answer, with LeBron in the house, that the roster of challengers who ran into Michael Jordan never quite had an answer for.
Magic Johnson was too banged up, Clyde Drexler too bereft of supporting players, Charles Barkley unable to win a battle of wills against the most willful player of all. Karl Malone twice tried to take on Jordan, once while carrying the MVP trophy Jordan always thought was rightly his. Jordan always found a way.
And LeBron, he may yet do that, too.
But what you saw Sunday night was LeBron James turning in one of the great stat lines you’ll ever see in a Finals game — 40 points, 14 rebounds, 11 assists, at least five more assists left on the table because his teammates couldn’t convert them — and it not being enough, because Steph Curry made sure it wouldn’t be enough. Because with the game available for either team— and with LeBron at the peak of his powers— Curry was just enough better. Just enough deadlier. By the end, LeBron was reduced to spectator status, watching from the bench as Curry took free throws and padded his final numbers — 37 points, four assists — but those numbers, honestly, only told part of the story.
It was the moments that piled those numbers — one huge 3 after another, seven of them in all, including one for- kicks- and- giggles 30- footer that nearly caused this arena, and 19,596 giddy, dizzy partisans— to implode.
“We knew we had to respond because we knew they were going to come after us with everything they had,” Curry said on TV when this one was over, the crowd unwilling — maybe unable — to leave, unwilling — maybe unable — to let go of this night, and of this team, which less than a week ago seemed on the verge of calamity and now, instead, sits on the precipice of paradise.
It’s impossible to overstate how much the Warriors needed to see their best player, the one voted the league’s best player, turn in a game like this, especially in the motivated presence of earth’s best player. He had plenty of help — Andre Iguodala ( 14 points) couldn’t get out of his own way on the foul line but everywhere else he was terrific, and so were Klay Thomoson ( 12 points) and Draymond Green ( 16 points, nine rebounds, a plus/ minus of + 23).
But when the game reached the tense moments, the ball was in Curry’s hands, and that was the safest place in the entire Bay Area for it to be. With the door still ajar for the Cavs, Curry slammed it shut, floated one toward the basket, and landed the Warriors one skinny game away from the promised land. An MVP doing most valuable things, indeed.