RECAPPING BOTH NBA CONFERENCE FINALS GAME 5’S
2 Miami Heat at 1 Indiana Pacers
Heat lead 3-1 coming in
Elimination Game for Pacers
Paul George had the game of his life on Wednsday, and even that was barley enough. The 6′ 9″ Pacers all-star had 37 points, shooting 12-19 from the field, along with six rebounds, six steals, five three-pointers, and only three turnovers in 45 minutes of play to lead the Pacers top a 93-90 win to stay alive in the playoffs. “My message to the whole team was the light needs to be on green for all of us,” Pacers coach Frank Vogel said. “You need to go, you need to attack, you need to be aggressive. Paul took it and ran with it and took it to a crazy level.”
The other key factor in this game was that four-time Player of the Year and Heat star Lebron James got in foul touble and was limited to only 24 minutes a career playoff-low 7 points. With 4.9 seconds left Chris Bosh’s game-winning 3 fell short and the Pacers won. “We still had enough opportunities to come away with a win,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We just couldn’t get over the hump.” Lance Stephenson seemed to be messing with Lebron most of the game which could have also thrown off the star’s game. “I’m just here to play basketball, man. All the extracurricular activities, I don’t really get into,” James said. “I’m just trying to win. We need one more win to get to the Finals. That’s my only concern. All the extra stuff, whatever Lance wants to do, I don’t really care about that.”
Game 6 is Friday in Miami and will be an elimination game for Indiana.
Key Stat
The Heat scored a season-low 22 points in the paint.
Fun Facts
- Lebron’s teams are 0-9 when he scores 15 or fewer points in the playoffs.
2 Oklahoma City Thunder at 1 San Antonio Spurs
Series tied 2-2
In game 5 of this two-faced series the Spurs routed OKC. “This is the craziest series I’ve ever been involved in,” Future Hall of Famer Tim Duncan said. The Spurs took a 3-2 lead with a 117-89 crushing win led by Tim Duncan (22 Pts, 12 Reb) “I have no clue, honestly,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said of the disparity. “I think every game, it’s a different animal. It really is. We talk to our team about that all the time. You have no clue what’s going to happen, how a team is going to come out, whether they’re going to be lethargic or hold the ball, get 50/50 balls or don’t get 50/50 balls.”
Manu Ginobli had 19 points and Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green each added 14 more to carry San Antonio to victory.”We gave them everything they wanted,” Oklahoma City coach Scott Brooks said. “They got the dribble drive, they got the 3-point line and they got to the free throw line.” On the other side the thunder barley scored more point in the 1st quarter (32) than the entire second half (34)”Our shots weren’t falling for us,” Durant said. “We’ve got to stay aggressive and we’ve got to get stops. When we can’t make a shot, we’ve got to play defense, and we didn’t tonight.”
Game 6 is Saturday in OKC and will be an elimination game for the Thunder.
KEY STATS
The Spurs dominated on the three-point line, shooting 13-26 and outrebounded OKC 48-35, however the main key to victory? Fast-break points. After allowing 21 in Game 4 San Antonio limited the Spurs to 4.
FUN FACTS
- The Spurs have won games in San Antonio in this series by an average of 26.7 points
- The Spurs have won a record seven-straight home playoffs games by 15 or more points
MOST CONSECUTIVE HOME WINS BY 15+ POINTS IN NBA PLAYOFFS
2014 Spurs 7 1996 Jazz 6 1985 Lakers 6