It has been two days since the Golden State Warriors officially became 2017 NBA champions are topping the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 5.
It effectively prevented any momentum from being built up by the Cavaliers to potentially claw back in the series. During an interview with Bill Simmons on his podcast, Durant acknowledged that the series would have headed back to Oracle Arena for Game 7 had Cleveland taken Game 5 on Monday night.
“I did not want to go back to Cleveland (for Game 6) and deal with that again. There would have been a Game 7 for sure.”
Durant was a major reason for making sure the Warriors closed out Game 5, putting together his most efficient scoring night of the series notching a team-high 39 points on 14-of-20 shooting including five made three-pointers. He was particularly huge in the fourth quarter with numerous big buckets to help keep the Cavaliers at bay.
The 28-year-old concluded his NBA Finals MVP performance averaging 35.2 points on 55.6 percent shooting from the field and 47.4 percent from beyond the arc. He also scored 30 or more points in each game while shooting better 53 percent in all, but one contest.
That said, if the series had shifted back to Cleveland, the chatter would have increased about the potential for Golden State to let another huge series lead slip away again. In fact, it would have been far worse than last year as the Cavaliers would have been the first team to come back from tan 0-3 in the NBA Finals.
Ultimately, the Warriors took care of business in Game 5 behind Durant that prevented that from ever coming to fruition.
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