Kevin Durant is doing his best impression of Mariano Rivera. It seems that whenever they need their closer to deliver a save he comes thru. Durant scored 17 4th quarter points on his way to a game high 36 points. But it’s not about how many he scored its how and when he scored.
Miami Heat started the game on fire, everyone was hitting shots. Battier, Haslem and Lebron provided an early spark for the Heat. But then in the second half the Thunder woke up and doused the heat cooling them off for the 105-94 victory.
Durant didn’t embarrass Lebron James too bad he just showed him how you lead your team in the clutch with the game on the line. Lebron’s gameplay was very good totaling 30 points the most he has every scored out of the 11 NBA Finals games he has appeared in. But only 7 of those came in the 4th quarter– Durant on the other hand added 17 in the 4th and this was his first ever game in the Finals.
Noticeably absent was the gameplay of Dwayne Wade he had a very quiet 19 pts and only shot 7-19 from the field. Shane Battier has more of an impact on the game that Wade did adding 17 surprising points and starting the game red hot. In the 2nd Half the Thunder came out charging and captured the lead late in the game for the first time and never relinquished it.
“They just made more plays than us,” Wade said. “They got a couple offensive rebounds that kind of hurt us. Got a couple of open shots, and from that point we were kind of playing from behind.” The Finals will be over in 4 maybe 5 games if D.Wade doesn’t figure it out soon. He hasn’t been playing like himself lately and he is already looking like the scapegoat should the Heat on on to lose in the Championship for the second year in a row.
The Oklahoma Thunder have not been to a NBA Finals since 1996 when they were the Seattle Supersonics and had Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp as their 1,2 punch That team of course ran into another super duo by the name of Jordan & Pippen. The fans on Tuesday night in the deafening arena got all that they came for seeing the home team outshine and out grind the Miami Heat down the stretch.
HIghlight video from game 1 of NBA Finals 2012 provided by Nba.com