Berry Tramel
OKLAHOMA CITY — Time drew short, and you couldn’t help thinking the same thing about the season. Just 8½ minutes left in a Game 5 that was nothing but a slog for the Thunder on Tuesday night.
The Nuggets had owned all but the first four minutes of the game. Nikola Jokic again was playing like he had been cooked up in another planet’s laboratory. And the Thunder was faced with going back to Denver down 3-2 in this Western Conference semifinal series.
Then a most unlikely hero appeared. Dort, by name. Luguentz Dort. Yep, the stalwart whose shooting was so off target in Game 4, Mark Daigneault sacrificed Dort’s defense to the bench. The substance-over-style Canadian who often finds himself on the wrong side of popularity polls, because he’s a streaky shooter, and even his makes aren’t exactly Picassos.
The Thunder trailed the Nuggets by nine points and hadn’t so much as made a fourth-quarter basket. OKC hadn’t scored in seven possessions, and Denver seemed ready to take this game and become the favorite to win the NBA championship.
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Then Dort, who had missed 24 of his previous 28 3-point shots, swished a deep-ball from the wing. The next Thunder trip, Dort swished a corner 3. Ninety seconds later, Dort nailed another wing 3, and off came the roof of Paycom Center, not to mention the roof of the Thunder offense.
Dort’s third 3-pointer brought the Thunder within two points, and soon enough OKC had a 112-105 victory, making all the plays down the stretch, including remarkable offense.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was great, with 10 points in the final 3:33. Jalen Williams hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:18 left. Isaiah Hartenstein scored twice.
But Dort’s shooting spree fueled this victory. Those baskets were oxygen masks for the Thunder. Jolts of energy for a team trying to find its way in crunch time.
“It won us the game, for real,” Williams said.
Said Daigneault, “He obviously was the story of the game.”
Daigneault had sat Dort for the entire fourth quarter of Game 4. Cason Wallace drew the tough defensive duties and hit the big shots, and some wondered if Dort needed to sit more in this series.
That’s silly, of course. Nuggets star Jamal Murray would put Daigneault in his will, if only the Thunder coach would slice Dort’s minutes in this series. I know, it seemed like Murray blistered the Thunder on Tuesday night, but notice that his 28 points came on 10-of-27 shooting. Dort makes the best in the business work for their supper.
Dort’s defense is too valuable to sit much. Yet on Tuesday, Dort’s offense was the difference.
“I don’t bet against Lu,” Daigneault said. “It’s that simple. Just a special thing about him. He’s always going to stand back up. He’s not perfect. But he’s always going to respond. He’s always going to compete. You can always count on him to do that. I don’t like betting against that guy.”
That guy is the guy who as an undrafted rookie shot just 29.7% from 3-point range five years ago, then made six of 12 in a Game 7 playoff showdown against Houston. A guy who worked his butt off to become, over the last two years, a 40.3% 3-point shooter. A guy who seems to be the most respected player in the Thunder locker room, because of his sellout to defense and willingness to LeBron James and Ja Morant and everyone in between.
And still, Dort’s biggest contribution was the ignition of the Thunder offense. When he sank three 3-pointers in a five-possession, two-minute span that cut Denver’s lead to 92-90, the value was more than the much-needed nine points.
“These guys are so connected,” Daigneault said. “It’s kind of like if a family member is hurting or happy, there’s a contagiousness to that, because of the connection. That’s how they are with each other.
“It brings an energy to the whole team. It’s contagious through the team, because of the relationships they have and the thing they’ve built. It brings great energy into the team, every time somebody rises back up from adversity.”
For the rest of the game, the Thunder seemed buoyed by Dort’s buckets. The energy was back. Offense and defense.
“Completely turned the game around,” Chet Holmgren said. “Just changed the whole game.
Dort, always the company man, said he stood with Daigneault in using Wallace down the stretch of Game 4.
Even when he sat for 20 of the Game 5’s 48 minutes, Dort said he and his teammates encouraged each other. Fight on. Trust. Keep the faith.
“Coach Mark is a big reason why I have the success in this league,” Dort said. “I have a lot of trust in him, he has a lot of trust in me at the same.”
The state of Oklahoma sometimes has trouble trusting Dort’s offense. The numbers don’t lie, but his rainbow shot makes everyone from Rumble to Thundor wince. But with the season on the line, the winces turned to cheers, and the cheers to jubilation, and the Thunder is just one win away from the Western Conference finals.
Tulsa World Sports Extra Show: A wake-up call for the OKC Thunder
Tulsa World Sports Extra Show: A wake-up call for the OKC Thunder. Juwan Lee and Berry Tramel discuss OKC's 40-point bounce back win, who is the Thunder's primary weapon and does this team need an enforcer?
berry.tramel@tulsaworld.com
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