The story of the game
Win probability after every play. Hover or drag to relive any moment.
Decided by 4 points with 8 lead changes and 49 ties. The game saw 28 major win probability swings, and the losing team's chances peaked at 99%.
Q3, 0:59.1, James (LAL): L. James 28' 3PT Jump Shot (20 PTS) (Smart 8 AST). It swung the win probability by +18.9 points.
Q2, 2:57, Thompson (HOU): Thompson BLOCK (3 BLK). It swung the win probability by -18.9 points.
Sengun (HOU) 12 pts
Turning points
The plays that moved winning odds the most.
Sheppard 25' 3PT Jump Shot (14 PTS) (Sengun 6 AST)
Smart 3PT Jump Shot (16 PTS) (Hachimura 2 AST)
L. James 25' 3PT Running Jump Shot (29 PTS) (Kennard 6 AST)
Hachimura 25' 3PT Jump Shot (19 PTS) (Kennard 5 AST)
Smart 3' Driving Finger Roll Layup (10 PTS)
Sengun Tip Layup Shot (21 PTS)
Who actually swung it
Players ranked by how much they moved the win probability, not by points scored.
Postgame read
LAL beat HOU 112-108 by 4 points.
The game turned at Q4, 4:59: Sheppard 25' 3PT Jump Shot (14 PTS) (Sengun 6 AST). That single play moved HOU's chance of winning from 35% to 63%. No other moment shifted the game more, and it went HOU's way.
No one influenced the outcome more than Sengun of HOU. Across 63 plays, his actions moved the win probability by a combined 169 percentage points, the most of any player on the floor.
The tensest moment for a comeback came at OT1, 0:35.5, with HOU down 5 points. The model put their chance of pulling it off at 12%. In other words: difficult, but not nothing.
The strongest run that didn't fully show on the scoreboard came at Q4, 4:59, with the game tilting HOU's way. The play in the middle of it: Sheppard 25' 3PT Jump Shot (14 PTS) (Sengun 6 AST).
These numbers come from ClutchCast's champion model, the winner of a competition between six models. The winner is judged on how honest its probabilities are on games it never trained on, not just how often it picks the right winner.