Well, that set Twitter ablaze.
The 2014 NBA Playoffs continued on Tuesday, May 13 with two games featuring four squads with championship aspirations. One team posted an absolute dud during a close-out game, while another was victorious in a game that featured no shortage of controversial calls.
Here’s everything that you need to know about last night’s action.
1. Marcin Gortat was purely dominant with 31 points and 16 rebounds on 13-of-15 shooting as the Washington Wizards blew out the Indiana Pacers 102-79. John Wall added 27 points to help the Wizards pull away from Indiana on the road with their backs against the wall.
The key in this game was on the glass, where Washington out-rebounded Indiana 62-23 o pull
2. Washington is 5-1 on the road during the 2014 playoffs. The Wizards went 4-23 during road playoff games in the previous 30 seasons.
3. Gortat is the first Wizards player with at least 30 and 15 in a playoff game since Moses Malone in 1987. He joins Dwight Howard as the only players over the past 30 postseasons to post 30 points and 15 rebounds while shooting at least 80 percent from the field.
4. Russell Westbrook posted a postseason-high 38 points to lead the Oklahoma City Thunder to a 105-104 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers. Blake Griffin went off for 24 points and 17 rebounds, and Chris Paul posted 17 points, 14 assists and four steals, but L.A. fell apart late in the game with turnovers and isolation sets.
A controversial foul scarred the ending, but it was Westbrook who hit three clutch free throws to seal the victory for OKC.
5. Kevin Durant was just 6-of-22 in what was one of the worst shooting performances of his career. Durant has shot below 30.0% from the field twice during the 2014 NBA Playoffs.
He shot better than 30.0 percent from the field in every single 2013-14 regular season game.
Bonus Fact: When a best-of-seven series is tied at 2-2, the winner of Game 5 goes on to close out the series 81.8 percent of the time.