The Golden State Warriors grabbed their second straight NBA title after completing a four-game sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers after a convincing win in Game 4 on Friday night.
Golden State's dominating effort over Cleveland saw All-Star forward Kevin Durant lead the charge offensively to earn his second straight NBA Finals MVP award. According to Rachel Nichols of ESPN, Durant claimed the accolade over All-Star point guard Stephen Curry by a close margin of voting by the panel of 11 media members.
NBA tells me the vote on Finals MVP was 7-4, KD over Steph.
Gotta think Durant coming up with that near-perfect game to determine the series was what swayed most voters. It’s what did it for me. https://t.co/wSsCNcGyDQ— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) June 9, 2018
In the four games played in the 2018 NBA Finals, Durant proved to be a consistent offensive factor throughout the series averaging 28.8 points on 52.6 percent shooting from the field and 40.9 percent from beyond the arc along with 10.8 rebounds, 7.5 assists, and 2.0 blocks per contest. The standout game that Nichols is referring to was Game 3 where he proved to be the primary reason why the Warriors grabbed a critical win in a pivotal contest by dropping a playoff career-high 43 points.
Durant backed it up in a series-clinching Game 4 with a triple-double, notching 20 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists that likely all but sealed the award for him. However, Curry did put up an MVP-worthy series performance averaging 27.5 points while shooting 41.5 percent from 3-point range with 6.8 assists, and 6.0 rebounds per contest. He made at least five 3-pointers in three out of the four games while scoring at least 29 points over those performances.
It was a voting process that could have gone either way given how strong of a series that both players had in this year's NBA Finals. They were both highly responsible for the Warriors earning their third NBA title in the last four seasons. This is an award that further heightens Durant's resume while continues to elude Curry that could provide him more motivation to get back to that stage to win one down the line.
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