Kevin Durant thinks things would have been different had he gotten a chance to get a shot up in the waning moments of the Warriors’ Christmas Day loss to Cleveland.
Kevin Durant says he would have made the game-winner if Richard Jefferson didn’t trip him
“But they ain’t calling it on him at their crib,” he added.
“I would’ve made that shot if he didn’t trip me up,” Durant told The Undefeated on Monday. “But they ain’t calling it on him at their crib. It’s not his fault. It’s not the refs fault, either.”
When Kyrie Irving hit the go-ahead shot — a turnaround fadeaway 13-footer over Klay Thompson — to give the Cleveland Cavaliers a 109-108 win over the Golden State Warriors in a Christmas Day NBA Finals rematch, there was one problem: He left 3.5 seconds on the clock.
Enough time for the Warriors to draw up a play and get a quality look for one of their many dangerous scoring options.
By now, you know how the end played out. Golden State found Durant on the left baseline all alone against Richard Jefferson. He put the ball on the floor and tripped over Jefferson’s foot, falling to the floor. Game, Cleveland.
Afterwards, KD made it clear that he didn’t just fall to the ground on his own.
Jefferson later said, “It’s one of those things, plays can go either way.”
The NBA, though, sided with Durant in its Monday officiating report, noting Jefferson should have been called for a foul on the game’s last play (and also noting LeBron James should have been called for a technical foul for hanging on the rim).
The idea that KD would have scored if not for Jefferson’s inadvertent trip isn’t far-fetched. Durant has made a handful of clutch shots and game-winners in his nine-plus-year career. You can relive some of them here.
Last season, Durant shot 41.2 percent on clutch shots (field goal attempts with under five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter and neither team ahead by more than five points, according to NBA Miner), third-best in the NBA among players with at least 100 attempts in crunch time behind only Dwyane Wade (45.5 percent) and Reggie Jackson (42.4 percent).
He also attempted the most field goals (38) in the final minute of the fourth quarter or overtime last season, and shot 39.5 percent — a moderate percentage when compared to Kyle Lowry (46.2 percent), Dirk Nowitzki (50 percent), and Gordon Hayward (53.8 percent).
We’ll never know if Durant, indeed, would have made the shot had he not tripped over Jefferson’s foot, and he was dribbling away from the bucket when he fell. But if anything, the tumultuous ending sets the scene for a can’t-miss rematch when Cleveland travels to Oakland on Jan. 16.
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