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Since Game 5 is potentially the last game of the 2020 NBA Finals, it’s time to talk about the Finals MVP.
Heading into Game 5, there are three top candidates to be crowned Finals MVP this season: LeBron James and Anthony Davis at the Los Angeles Lakers and Jimmy Butler at the Miami Heat.
Butler’s odds are slim right now – this is his reminder that Jerry West is the only player in NBA history who was named Finals MVP on a losing team and it happened 51 years ago, but he’s played long enough. well enough to deserve a mention.
So who is in the driver’s seat for the Finals MVP? Let’s take a closer look at the James, Davis, and Butler case.
The LeBron James Case
Finals MVP Odds: -1000
No one is averaging more points (27.8) and rebounds (11.0) than James in the 2020 NBA Finals. He is also averaging 8.5 assists per game, putting him only behind Butler (10.0) for the most in the series. .
James has yet to record a triple-double, but he has come close in all four games.
In Game 1, James had 25 points, 13 rebounds and nine assists. In Game 2, 33 points, nine rebounds and nine assists. In Game 3, 25 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists. In Game 4, 28 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists. Unlike Davis, who faced foul problems and was limited to 15 points in Game 3, James has had a tremendous offensive impact in each and every game of the series.
James has also scored efficiently, shooting 54.1 percent from the field, 36.4 percent from 3-point range and 71.9 percent from the free throw line. It’s all the more impressive for the fact that most of his scoring was fabricated by himself against a Heat team that has several similarly-sized defenders in Butler, Andre Iguodala and Jae Crowder. According to NBA.com, 25 of the 40 shots James has made so far have not been assisted. Davis has been much more reliant on his teammates, with only 13 of the 40 shots he has taken unassisted.
MORE: The Finals turn LeBron into a bully
The only thing James has struggled with lately is turnovers. After turning the ball only twice in the first two games of the series, he combined 14 in the last two games. Five of those turnovers came in the first half of Game 4, but James more than made up for it with a masterful second half that saw him record 20 points, nine rebounds and four assists while turning the ball just once.
He propelled the Lakers to victory, placing them within a No. 17 championship win.
LJ’s second half lifts LA to a 3-1 lead! 💪@King James (28 PTS, 12 REB, 8 AST) drops 20 in the second half when the @Lakers Win Game 4 and go 3-1!
Game 5: Friday – 9:00 pm / et, ABC pic.twitter.com/WwZ2x9lhDF
– NBA (@NBA) October 7, 2020
According to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, there have only been five times in NBA history that a player has won a championship while leading his team in scoring, rebounding and assists. James has already done it three times (2012, 2013, 2016), while Magic Johnson (1987) and Tim Duncan (2003) each did it once. Each time, it resulted in a Finals MVP.
That bodes well for James, as he looks to become the first player to win the Finals MVP with three different teams.
The Anthony Davis case
Finals MVP Odds: +600
The Finals MVP was Davis’ losing two games in the Finals.
Davis was the best player on the court in Game 1 with 34 points, nine rebounds and five assists. James had a great game too, but it was Davis who set the tone with an explosive first half that helped the Lakers build a double-digit lead to victory.
Davis made history with his performance, tying Elgin Baylor for the third-most points scored by a Laker in his Finals debut.
Anthony Davis scored 34 points in the Lakers’ Game 1 win over the Heat.
That’s tied for the third-most points scored in an NBA Finals debut in Lakers franchise history, behind only Shaquille O’Neal (43 in 2000) and George Mikan (42 in 1949). .
Elgin Baylor also had 34 points in 1959. pic.twitter.com/TyB87IEDdo
– Statistics and information from ESPN (@ESPNStatsInfo) October 1, 2020
Davis was just as good in Game 2. He finished with 32 points and 14 rebounds, and he did it on 15 of 20 shooting from the field. He was at his most dominant in the third quarter when he scored 15 points and grabbed four offensive rebounds. With Bam Adebayo out of the game with a neck injury, Davis used his size to punish the Heat in the 2-3 zone that gave the Boston Celtics so much trouble in the Eastern Conference Finals.
MORE: LeBron and Davis are cheat codes for the Miami area
Davis struggled in Game 3, but came back big in Game 4. He did a bit of everything, scoring 22 points, grabbing nine rebounds, dishing out four assists and blocking four shots. He also played a leading role in Butler having his lowest-scoring game in the series. Davis went from tagging Crowder and Kelly Olynyk in the first three games of the series to taking on the task of tagging Butler in Game 4. With Davis tagging him, nothing was easy for Butler. (More on that here).
Overall, Davis is averaging 25.8 points, 9.3 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.8 blocks with 60.6 percent shooting from the field, 54.5 percent shooting from 3-point range and 100.0 percent free shooting in the Finals. Other than Game 3 when he faced foul problems, the Heat haven’t had an answer for him.
For starters, the Lakers have outscored the Heat by 24 points in the 152 minutes Davis has been on the court. By comparison, the Lakers have outscored the Heat by 11 points in the 153 minutes James has been on the court.
The Lakers have even survived the minutes Davis has been on the court without James in the Finals (+11 in 37 minutes), which was not the case in the regular season.
The case of Jimmy Butler
Finals MVP Odds: +2300
Again, the odds of Butler being the MVP of the Finals if the Lakers win Game 5 are slim or nil, but he still deserves to be mentioned.
Since Game 1, Butler has been adding numbers similar to LeBron’s for a sum of 29.0 points, 11.7 assists and 9.7 rebounds per game. It kept Game 2 closer than it should have been considering the Heat were without Adebayo and Goran Dragic, adding 25 points, 13 assists and eight rebounds. He then had a historic 40-point triple-double in Game 3 that helped the Heat win their first game of the series.
After 40 PTS, 11 REB, 13 AST from Jimmy Butler in the @Miami Heat Game 3 W, review his best plays in Orlando so far! #Hot pic.twitter.com/vrbFtGqD8a
– NBA (@NBA) October 5, 2020
Davis was able to contain him in Game 4, but Butler was still one assist away from registering his second straight triple-double with 22 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists.
The on / off numbers say everything you need to know: Miami is averaging 113.6 points per 100 possessions with Butler on the court, an impressive number considering how slim it has been. With him on the bench, that number plummets to 94.0.
The Heat still have a net negative rating with Butler on the court, but they go from being competitive (-2.8) to being pulled out of the water (-20.8) when he sits on the bench.
Small sample size? Insurance. But Butler is the reason this series has been more competitive than many expected when Adebayo and Dragic fell through injuries in Game 1. If the Heat can extend the series, Butler’s Finals MVP case will only grow. .
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