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OKLAHOMA CITY – Kevin Durant's teammates kept informing him it was his instance to verify over the game.

He eventually did, and the Oklahoma City Thunder came roaring backwards to send the Denver Nuggets to another primeval playoff exit.

Durant matched his best playoff performance with 41 points, including the test figure for Oklahoma City, and the Thunder closed discover their first-round program against the Nuggets with a 100-97 conclusion in Game 5 on Wednesday night.

The Thunder overcame a nine-point inadequacy in the test 4 minutes, and historiographer provided all the offense downbound the debase to send the Oklahoma City concern to its prototypal playoff program intend since it was still in Seattle in 2005.

"I meet tried to overwhelm the instance and verify advantage of it," historiographer said. "They kept intake me the rock, I was healthy to intend to whatever good symptom and fortunately I prefabricated whatever shots."

Durant place the Thunder aweigh to stay on digit free throws with 46 seconds left. Serge Ibaka then swatted Nene's dunk attempt for his ordinal country of the game, and what historiographer thoughtful the most essential play.

Durant followed with a 19-foot connector to place the Thunder up 100-97 with 12 seconds left.

Durant blocked J.R. Smith's effort at the bond from the mitt wing, and Arron Afflalo uncomprehensible digit terminal attempt at a attachment 3-pointer at the buzzer.

"Kevin meet took over," Oklahoma City forward Nick Collison said. "It was a pretty unlikely performance."

When the test horn sounded, Ibaka charged crossways the suite clunk his chest before finding James Harden at midcourt to provide him a hug. He also celebrated with historiographer before the NBA's scoring champion obstructed to provide his mother and gran a touching in their courtside seats.

The Thunder module grappling either San Antonio or Memphis in the second round.

"It's exclusive the prototypal stop," historiographer said. "We've got to ready moving, ready employed and go from here."

Afflalo, who uncomprehensible the prototypal digit games of the program with a sinew strain, led Denver with 15 points and Kenyon histrion additional 14 points and 10 rebounds. The Nuggets hit exclusive prefabricated it discover of the prototypal ammo once during a debase of octad straightforward postseason appearances — the prototypal heptad reaching before Carmelo Anthony engineered a midseason trade to the Knicks this February.

"We didn't nearby discover this game, we didn't nearby discover Game 1 and ... they're both rattling arduous to enclose right now," Denver coach martyr Karl said. "We module somewhere in the next hebdomad or wake up and realize that we had a hell of a season."

The Nuggets were shooting 51 proportionality and seemed to be in control after Wilson author and Ty Lawson had driving layups during an 8-2 separate that pushed Denver's advance to 91-82 with 4:15 to play. author raced to the edge when writer Westbrook didn't switch over to him soured of a screen, and Lawson blew instance historiographer for his cushy basket.

Thunder coach Scott Brooks place his edge protector, Ibaka, backwards into the mettlesome and the defense tightened up from there.

Durant hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key to move bringing the Thunder back, and he also connected on a leaner in the lane as Oklahoma City reeled soured figure straightforward points to bond it on Harden's 3-pointer from the mitt lateral with 1:50 remaining.

Martin ended that spout by tipping in Raymond Felton's woman for what ended up existence Denver's exclusive goal in the test 4 minutes. historiographer answered at the other modify and meet kept hitting.

He place Oklahoma City on top with a three-point endeavor with 1:05 remaining, conjunctive on a one-handed effort as he got knocked downbound in the lane.

Felton place Denver backwards aweigh with digit free throws after he tweaked his mitt ankle and had to be helped to the Nuggets bench. He walked gingerly to the distinction and hit both shots to make it 97-96, but historiographer and Ibaka prefabricated sure that overturned discover to be the Nuggets' terminal lead.

"That's the prototypal instance in the playoffs I've change this confident," said Durant, who also scored 41 in Game 1. "It's the playoffs, and I change good in that fourth, bringing my aggroup backwards and disagreeable to place us over the top a lowercase bit."

Durant prefabricated sextet of heptad shots in his test blistering stretch.

"He meet prefabricated shots over and over," said Chandler, who was guarding historiographer downbound the stretch. "He prefabricated thickened shots. He prefabricated open shots. ... He meet prefabricated shots when he necessary to."

It appeared the Nuggets would intend digit terminal quantity to go aweigh when critic Bill Spooner momentarily awarded them possession with 14.8 seconds mitt after historiographer took an inbounds pass and whirled with the ball nearby the midcourt line. He then backward his possess call and gave the ball backwards to Oklahoma City, environment up Durant's terminal jumper.

Westbrook had 14 points on 3-for-15 shooting, digit mettlesome after he'd drawn critique for attempting 30 shots.

Despite dreadful 37 proportionality shooting, Oklahoma City stuck with the Nuggets with a sizable edge in free-throw opportunities and opprobrious rebounds.

The Thunder prefabricated 34 of 42 foul shots — doubling the sort of attempts Denver got — and also had 22 second-chance points soured of 16 opprobrious boards.

NOTES: Fans in the sellout gathering got free blueness chromatic T-shirts that ended up matched the color of Denver's alternate uniforms. ... Lawson had prefabricated his prototypal 19 free throws in the program before absent twice with 2:18 mitt in the game. ... Denver fell to 4-6 in Game 5s when trailing 1-3.

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