The Splash Brothers came up big when they were needed most, and the Warriors kept their championship hopes alive with Monday's 106-105 victory in Toronto.
The Splash Brothers came up big when they were needed most, and the Warriors kept their championship hopes alive with Monday's 106-105 Game 5 victory in Toronto. Now down 3-2 in the series, the NBA Finals come back to Oakland on Thursday for a critical Game 6.
The Warriors led for nearly the entirety of the game, but the Warriors had to snatch the victory from the jaws of defeat to make sure one more game will be played at Oracle Arena. After Kawhi Leonard had scored 10 straight Raptors points as part of a 12-2 run that left the Dubs down by six – their largest deficit of the game – the Warriors responded with 3-pointers from Klay Thompson, Stephen Curry and Thompson again to take the lead right back.
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Toronto would respond with a bucket and had a chance to win the game on the final possession, but Draymond Green challenged a shot from the Raptors’ Kyle Lowry, forcing a miss and a sixth game in this series.
That the Warriors won the game on 3-point shooting was very fitting. The Dubs were 20-for-42 from distance for the game, with Thompson knocking down seven of them on 13 attempts for 26 points and Curry sinking five treys for his game-high 31 points.
Playing in his first game since May 8, Kevin Durant returned to the starting lineup and provided a much-needed spark for the Dubs before suffering a lower right leg injury in the opening minutes of the second quarter. Fueled by Durant’s return, the Dubs connected on their first five 3-point attempts, with Durant sinking two of those. He’d go on to have 11 points in 12 minutes, shooting 3-for-3 on threes before exiting the game with the injury.
When Durant exited the game, the Dubs held a 39-34 lead with 9:46 left in the first half. And after not playing up to that point, DeMarcus Cousins entered the game for the first time and scored seven straight points to put the Dubs up 46-35 for their biggest lead of the game to that point. Cousins would finish with 14 points and five boards while going 6-for-8 from the floor for 20 minutes.
Draymond Green added 10 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists, and he overcame foul trouble to make the biggest defensive play of the game, challenging Lowry’s potential game-winner at the end. But that wasn’t the only big play Green made in the fourth quarter. Green knocked down his second 3-pointer of the game midway through the fourth period and he converted a lefty jump hook in the lane for the Dubs’ lone points during Toronto’s 12-2 run in the fourth quarter that gave the Raptors their first lead since the fourth quarter.
Curry and Thompson had the answer though, and the Dubs will need them to come up big again on Thursday in what will be the final Warriors game ever played at Oracle Arena – Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals.