The story of the game
Win probability after every play. Hover or drag to relive any moment.
Decided by 11 points with 5 lead changes and 22 ties. The game saw 18 major win probability swings, and the losing team's chances peaked at 100%.
Q4, 0:45, Shamet (NYK): Shamet 3PT Jump Shot (6 PTS) (Anunoby 2 AST). It swung the win probability by +39.9 points.
Q4, 0:19.3, Brunson (NYK): Brunson 3' Driving Floating Bank Jump Shot (36 PTS). It swung the win probability by -38.3 points.
Brunson (NYK) 11 pts
Turning points
The plays that moved winning odds the most.
Shamet 3PT Jump Shot (6 PTS) (Anunoby 2 AST)
Brunson 3' Driving Floating Bank Jump Shot (36 PTS)
Harden 11' Turnaround Jump Shot (15 PTS)
Mobley 3PT Jump Shot (8 PTS) (Mitchell 2 AST)
Mitchell 26' 3PT Jump Shot (16 PTS) (Mobley 2 AST)
Towns 26' 3PT Step Back Jump Shot (5 PTS)
Who actually swung it
Players ranked by how much they moved the win probability, not by points scored.
Postgame read
NYK beat CLE 115-104 by 11 points.
The game turned at Q4, 0:45: Shamet 3PT Jump Shot (6 PTS) (Anunoby 2 AST). That single play moved NYK's chance of winning from 25% to 54%. No other moment shifted the game more, and it went NYK's way.
No one influenced the outcome more than Brunson of NYK. Across 56 plays, his actions moved the win probability by a combined 102 percentage points, the most of any player on the floor.
The tensest moment for a comeback came at Q4, 3:30, with NYK down 5 points. The model put their chance of pulling it off at 13%. In other words: difficult, but not nothing.
The strongest run that didn't fully show on the scoreboard came at Q4, 0:02.5, with the game tilting NYK's way. The play in the middle of it: MISS Merrill 27' 3PT Jump Shot.
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.