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The trophy was ready.
Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat delayed his appearance. The NBA Finals are not over, not after Butler and the Heat put together a virtuous performance in Game 5 on Friday night.
Butler had 35 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists, and the Heat saw Danny Green’s wide 3-pointer in the closing seconds bounce off the rim on the way to beat Los Angeles 111-108, cutting the Lakers’ title lead. . series a 3-2.
Game 6 is Sunday night.
Duncan Robinson scored 26 points for Miami, which used seven players. Kendrick Nunn had 14 points, Bam Adebayo 13, Tyler Herro 12 and Jae Crowder 11. The seventh player, Andre Iguodala, did not score.
Fast guide
NBA Finals 2020
They had enough.
LeBron James had 40 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists for the Lakers. Anthony Davis scored 28 points and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had 16.
The Lakers were seconds away from the title before the Heat rallied to save the season.
Los Angeles smashed all the stops: Davis had shiny gold sneakers, the shade similar to the Larry O’Brien Trophy, and the team made the decision earlier in the week to skip the scheduled purple uniforms and wear the black ones designed and inspired by Kobe Bryant in its place.
They were 4-0 in those uniforms. They are 4-1 now.
But Bryant, oh, how he would have loved this fight. Drama, until the end.
Robinson’s 3-pointer with 3:13 to play put Miami up by two and began a streak in which the next nine scoring possessions from both sides resulted in a tie or lead trade.
They went back and forth. Butler was fouled with 46.7 seconds left, then collapsed onto the baseline video boards, clearly exhausted. He made both free throws for a one point lead; Davis’ setback with 21.8 seconds to play brought the Lakers back to the top.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra used his last time out before the next possession, only to buy Butler a couple of minutes of rest. Butler led the lane, made contact and made both with 16.8 seconds remaining for a 109-108 lead.
The Lakers’ mission at the time couldn’t have been simpler: get a basket, win a title.
They couldn’t do it. James found Green just for a high-level triple that he missed, and Herro finished him off with two free throws.
Miami was up 93-82 with 10:17 to play when James scored his sixth triple of the night, in eight attempts to that point.
It was time to go for the Lakers.
All three of James started a 17-3 streak in the next 4:50. Caldwell-Pope hit a 3-pointer to put the Lakers up 97-96, then added a transition basket about a minute later. No one was sitting on the Lakers bench. The Heat went cold.
But behind Butler, they teamed up.
Butler became the sixth player in NBA Finals history to have multiple triple-doubles in the same series of titles: Magic Johnson and James have done it three times, while Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain and Draymond Green have. have done once.
The Heat led 88-82 after three quarters, scoring 28 points in that span and getting 14 of those points on three possessions.
Butler scored while taking a flagrant foul from Dwight Howard to initiate a three-point play, and Robinson scored a triple on additional possession – the sequence carried things from a tied game to a 76-70 lead on the Heat in an affair. . of 13 seconds.
Crowder’s four-point play with 3:01 left in the third put Miami up by five, and Robinson had a four-point play in the final minute of the fourth to put the Heat up six.
James scored 15 points in the second quarter, his eighth quarter this season with at least that many (second in the playoffs) and the Lakers needed all of them to prevent Miami from building what briefly seemed like a solid lead.
The Heat held an 11-point lead in the second quarter, but James kept the Lakers afloat. Butler was 22 at halftime, and Miami took a 60-56 lead at the half.
