Tuesday night was undeniably a must-win game for the OKC Thunder, as it presented them with an opportunity to take back home-court advantage as well as control over this entire semifinal series before heading on the road for a bout out in Denver.
Fortunately, the ball club understood this and stepped up when it mattered most, besting the Nuggets 112-105 in front of a raucous crowd at Paycom Center and, ultimately, securing a 3-2 lead in the process.
Pulling out this victory was a result of an all-around team effort, as ten players saw double-digit minutes logged while the team as a whole shot 50.0 percent from the field and 41.4 percent from deep and held the Nuggets to just 41.2 percent shooting from the floor and 28.3 percent shooting from distance.
However, to star forward Jalen Williams, one player, in particular, deserves all the credit for leading them to glory on Tuesday night.
Said player: Lu Dort.
Jalen Williams credits Lu Dort for willing Thunder to Game 5 win
During his post-game media session, Williams did not mince his words when discussing the importance of Dort's contributions during the contest, especially late in the fourth quarter, as he bluntly told reporters that "he won us the game, for real."
After remaining rather quiet through the first three periods of play with a mere 3 points on a putrid 1-for-4 shooting and registering a -15 plus-minus, the veteran absolutely came alive during the final 12 minutes of action.
Amid a rough start to the quarter, going 0-for-3 and finding themselves down by nine points (90-81) through the initial 3:38 of game-time, Dort stopped the bleeding by cashing home a smooth transition triple to cut their deficit to just six.
From there, he would splash in two of his next three shots from deep, drawing the score to 92-90 with just over 6:00 to play.
As a result of his surge, momentum had clearly shifted in favor of the Thunder, as they would outscore the Nuggets 22-13 from then on out and, in the end, secured a seven-point edge by the time the final buzzer sounded.
While Dort may not have scored another bucket the rest of the way, and Williams would go on to rattle in seven of his 18 points on the night during the closing minutes, the 24-year-old credited the guard's ability to "make big shots and then not let up on the defensive end" as "the biggest thing" in his eyes.
And even with the fact that J-Dub hit the clutch triple at the 1:18 mark to halt the Nuggets' 7-5 run and give OKC a 106-103 lead, he was quick to note that, had it not been for Dort's assist on the play, such a chain of events may never have transpired.
So even though many may be looking to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's 31 points and the fact that six Thunder players dropped in double-digit scoring contributions as the main factors in the club's pivotal Game 5 win, Jalen Williams is making it abundantly clear that he believes the outcome on the night could have been very different had it not been for Lu Dort's heroics.