{"id":32177,"date":"2025-05-14T11:12:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T11:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/32177\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T11:12:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T11:12:16","slug":"lu-dort-powers-okc-thunder-to-3-2-series-lead-vs-nuggets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/32177\/","title":{"rendered":"Lu Dort powers OKC Thunder to 3-2 series lead vs Nuggets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lu Dort<\/a> snarled and stomped. He bowed his arms and bobbed his head.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019d seen this version of him. The mild-mannered Montrealan had morphed into Big Game Lu<\/a>, a scary sight if you\u2019re on the opposite sideline.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Benched in the fourth quarter of Game 4<\/a>, Dort traded bricks for buckets in the biggest moments of Game 5<\/a>. His three 3-pointers in the fourth quarter catalyzed the Thunder\u2019s 112-105 win against the Nuggets<\/a> on Tuesday night in Oklahoma City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Thunder leads the series 3-2 with a chance to close things out Thursday night in Denver.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear as day we wouldn\u2019t have been able to win tonight if Lu doesn\u2019t make those shots,\u201d said Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a>, who hit a huge fourth-quarter 3-pointer of his own.\u00a0<\/p>\n

SGA wasn\u2019t the only one who summarized the game so succinctly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt won us the game for real,\u201d said Jalen Williams<\/a>, who hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with just over a minute left.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, OKC Thunder ‘flex the muscles’ to stun Denver Nuggets in Game 5<\/a><\/p>\n

The Thunder wasn\u2019t dead before Dort\u2019s barrage, but the building was tight. OKC trailed by nine points with nine minutes to play.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two minutes and three Dort triples later, Denver\u2019s lead was down to two.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShout out to the crowd,\u201d Dort said. \u201cThe crowd got a lot of emotion out of me tonight.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Did it ever.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even when he was done making threes, Dort didn\u2019t stop making winning plays. He dove into the Nuggets bench to save a ball from going out of bounds. Dort\u2019s effort led to a Chet Holmgren layup that tied the game and forced another Denver timeout.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You knew Daigneault was going to go back to Dort even after benching him amid a 2-of-10 shooting night in Game 4. Daigneault is the biggest Dort defender of all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t bet against Lu,\u201d Daigneault said. \u201cIt\u2019s that simple.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Daigneault was a Thunder assistant when a rookie Dort scored 30 points in a Game 7 loss to the Rockets in the bubble.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s back before Dort learned how to shoot. But even then it was evident that he had a knack for making timely, towering 3-pointers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just a special thing about him,\u201d Daigneault said. \u201cHe\u2019s always going to stand back up. He\u2019s not perfect, but he\u2019s always going to respond and he\u2019s always going to compete.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Heck, maybe the stakes of Game 4 in Denver \u2014\u00a0which the Thunder won \u2014\u00a0weren\u2019t high enough for Dort. Only half-joking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t call him Big Game Lu for nothin\u2019.<\/p>\n

Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at\u00a0jmussatto@oklahoman.com<\/a>. Support Joe’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a\u00a0digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More: OKC Thunder stuns Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets with wild Game 5 comeback | 5 takeaways<\/a><\/p>\n

Thunder vs. Nuggets playoff schedule<\/p>\n

All times are Central Time (CT)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lu Dort snarled and stomped. He bowed his arms and bobbed his head.\u00a0 We\u2019d seen this version of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[7,311,301,187,3943,839,838,183,6,11,302,310,179,34,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-32177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-nuggets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-city","10":"tag-denver","11":"tag-denver-nuggets","12":"tag-denvernuggets","13":"tag-dort","14":"tag-luguentz","15":"tag-luguentz-dort","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-nba-playoffs","18":"tag-nuggets","19":"tag-oklahoma","20":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","21":"tag-playoffs","22":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114505891523699221","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}