Jordan Poole’s emergence was one of the biggest positives of the season for the Golden State Warriors. He averaged over 18 points per game during the regular season and started the postseason on an absolute tear against the Denver Nuggets, as Stephen Curry was just coming back from an injury.
Curry’s return to the starting lineup later in that series meant Poole had to dial it back a bit, but he remained a solid contributor for the Warriors the rest of the way. He did hit a bit of a roadblock in the Finals as he struggled early on, but he did manage to pick himself back up as the series went on. His contributions were felt more so than perhaps ever before in Game 5 of the Finals according to Draymond Green, who stated that Poole’s buzzer-beater from half-court to end the 3rd quarter of Game 5, was the biggest shot of the Finals.
(at the 17:50 mark):
“The biggest shot of the series was Jordan Poole’s shot before the end of quarter no. 3 in Game 5, where he banked the three in. The reason that was the biggest shot of the series was because they had fought back in the third quarter, which we had dominated third quarters (in the series). They fought back in that third quarter and when they fought back, they had taken the lead and Jordan hit the shot and we went up one, going into the fourth quarter. I know to most people it is like, well, they only up one, so no big deal, it’s right there. But what that did to them mentally, for them to see man, we just had this incredible quarter and we’re going into the fourth quarter down. It didn’t matter whether they were down by one point or ten points, to have the quarter that they had to take the lead and then go into the next quarter down, that for them I felt like was a dagger when Jordan hit that shot.”
That was definitely a very big shot and there’s no doubt that it was a big blow psychologically to the Celtics. After scoring 35 points in that third-quarter barrage, the Celtics wouldn’t score for almost 4 minutes to start the fourth quarter and by that time, the Warriors were out of sight.
They would win that game 104-94 and carried on that momentum to clinch the title in Boston in Game 6. Poole may not have had the best of times during the Finals, but he did hit the most important shot in the series.
