Unfair: That’s what Kevin Durant is. A guy listed at 6-9 who probably stands closer to 7 feet, but blessed with the perimeter gifts of a guy half a foot shorter.
Again and again in Game Three of the NBA Finals his jumpshot — a lovely, fluid thing — was contested by Cleveland Cavaliers defenders. And again and again he splashed it home, rescuing the Golden State Warriors on a night when the Cavs came out loaded for bear. Also one where Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson couldn’t get it going and Andre Iguodala, making his first appearance of the Finals, appeared to be playing on no more than one leg.
The capper was Durant’s 3-point bomb with 49.8 seconds left (“K.Durant 33′ 3PT Pullup Shot,” it says on the official play-by-play sheet), a shot delivered from the same vicinity of the Quicken Loans Arena floor where he nailed a dagger of a triple in Game Three of last year’s Finals.
Only deeper.
This time he put the Dubs up 106-100 with the last of his career playoff-high 43 points. (He also contributed 13 rebounds and seven assists.) The final was 108-102, and the series is now all but over at 3-0.
A title would be the Warriors’ third in four years, and their second straight since Durant signed with them in July 2016.
Speaking of unfair.
There are those who will forever hold it against him that he gravitated to an already-great team, that the Perfect Basketball Machine was plugged into the Perfect Basketball Machine.
Doesn’t seem kosher, the naysayers said, to have such a superteam — forgetting that squads like this have been part of the NBA fabric since George Mikan’s Minneapolis Lakers.
Doesn’t seem all that courageous to go ring-chasing, they said of Durant, forgetting that he hasn’t exactly been riding anybody’s coattails these last two years.
Look, he didn’t handle his departure from Oklahoma City as well as he should have — he didn’t give Russell Westbrook a heads-up, for one thing — but he has been driving the bus as much as anyone else the last two seasons, as opposed to plopping down in a back seat, and letting Curry, Thompson and Draymond Green have the wheel.
The Warriors don’t win last year’s ring without him, and they would most assuredly not be poised to win another without him right now.
(And funny, isn’t it, about the speculation that Curry might be in line to win his first Finals MVP after he went off in Game Two. Durant, brilliant in that one and 15-for-23 from the floor, including 6-for-9 from 3, on Wednesday, has rewritten that narrative.)
He kept the Warriors in it with 24 first-half points; they were down just 58-52 at the break, despite some rugged play by the Cavs. And he continued to show the way, despite the struggles by Curry (3-for-16 from the floor, 1-for-11 from 3, 11 points) and Thompson (4-for-11, 2-for-5, 10 points).
Naturally Curry dropped in the layup that put the Dubs ahead to stay with 2:58 left, then added his only 3-ball of the night the next time down. And Iguodala, back after missing the previous six games with a bad left knee, shrugged off an injury to the other leg to contribute a steal and dunk down the stretch. He was plus-14 in 22 minutes off the bench; only Durant (plus-15) was better.
It wasn’t perfect — not on this night — but it was damn good.
And if it also might have seemed a little unfair, so be it.