Game 3 at Golden 1 Center was a full house.
Despite being down 0–2 and staring at a potential sweep, Kings fans hadn't lost hope.
Because they had Han Sen.
If there was anyone in the league capable of performing miracles, it was him.
Han had already pulled off too many impossible feats.
Just last round against the Pelicans—any other player down 1–2 would've been finished. But Han turned it around.
So now? Down 0–2?
Even if they were down 0–3, Kings fans would still believe.
Just like Lakers fans once did—believing in a 4–3 comeback against all odds.
And it wasn't just the fans.
The Kings' young players were fired up tonight, too.
Sure, Tyronn Lue's speeches could be cheesy and dramatic—but they still hit when it mattered.
More than that, though, these rookies wanted to make history.
That fearless, reckless energy—the kind only young players have when they don't know what to fear—was alive in them.
And more than anyone, they had been shaped by Han Sen.
Meanwhile, the Warriors had no clue about any of this.
They were loose in warmups.
Draymond Green in particular couldn't hide the smugness on his face.
He wasn't as openly disrespectful as LeBron had been—but make no mistake, he wanted this win over Han badly.
Because deep down, he knew:
If he didn't beat Han now, he might never get another shot.
It was like Shaq beating Jordan during his first comeback—it didn't matter if MJ wasn't 100%, the win still counted in the history books.
And if Draymond could help take down Han Sen and win a title this year?
That'd be the ultimate legacy-builder. The final piece of his Draymond formula.
---
After the pregame ceremony, the lineups were announced.
Warriors starting five:
Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Paul George, Draymond Green, Kevon Looney.
Kings starting five:
Donovan Mitchell, Buddy Hield, Han Sen, Jayson Tatum, Marc Gasol.
Lue had made a change—Marc Gasol started over Sabonis.
Steve Kerr looked calm. He probably expected this adjustment.
But once the game started, it became clear—
He wasn't ready.
Gasol didn't post up Looney.
Instead, he parked himself on the right wing, out at the three-point line.
Han Sen?
He went straight to the low block and started backing down Paul George.
The Warriors were completely caught off guard.
Kerr didn't react in time. Han didn't see a double team.
He spun baseline—fadeaway jumper. Bucket.
Han nodded to himself.
His touch felt good tonight. That meant more jumpers, fewer drives.
And that meant less energy burned.
On the other end, the Warriors executed well in the half court.
Curry drained a deep three right over Mitchell's contest.
Curry was already 31—older than Han by a year—but he was still very much in his prime.
Lue knew that too. That's why unlike in Game 2, Han wasn't assigned to guard Steph tonight.
They needed to save his legs for offense.
Back the other way—Han in the post again. This time, he pump-faked George, used a jab-step to get inside position, then scored with a smooth step-through layup.
The crowd exploded.
Han's back-to-back buckets lit up the Kings' bench.
Everyone started feeding off the energy.
Curry tried to get open again but was denied the ball.
Thompson got a pass from Draymond and pulled up—Han rotated just in time to contest. Miss.
Kerr never liked playing traditional centers.
His philosophy was inherited from the old "Seven Seconds or Less" Suns—fast pace, transition offense, five-man spacing.
But the flaw in that approach?
When the game slows down, your offense crumbles.
Lue knew that better than anyone.
He'd been through two Finals battles against this same Warriors system.
And now?
Han posted up again.
Kerr still hadn't adjusted.
Draymond hesitated—tried to shade toward the paint.
But it was too late.
Han spun baseline, bullied George under the basket, and laid it in through contact.
Three straight possessions. Three straight scores.
Golden 1 Center was shaking.
"People forget—after MJ, Han's probably the most dangerous low-post perimeter player we've ever seen," Charles Barkley said on the broadcast.
Han had built his low-post game during his time with the Grizzlies.
Now? It was fully mastered.
What Barkley didn't know?
Han's wingspan and height had been enhanced—he actually had a size advantage over Paul George now.
George was already struggling to defend him before.
Now? He had no chance.
Kerr finally called a play—but not to fix the defense.
He told Curry to push the pace.
The Warriors tried to speed things up and started targeting Marc Gasol on defense.
Basketball had evolved.
Targeting mismatches was standard now.
Whether it was Gasol or Sabonis—the Warriors would hunt them relentlessly.
Klay Thompson got a switch, pulled up on Gasol—money.
Even in his prime, Gasol struggled with those.
Now, at this point in his career? He had no answer.
And the Warriors were shooting the lights out.
Kerr still wasn't sending double teams at Han.
After five minutes, the score was 12–14. Kings were still down.
It was clear—if the Warriors kept bombing threes, even Han's elite post-ups wouldn't be enough.
Lue turned and called for Rudy Gay.
When Gay subbed in for Gasol, Kenny Smith on commentary was stunned:
"What is this lineup??"
Even Kerr looked rattled.
He had always been considered a small-ball revolutionary.
But now he was staring at a team even more extreme than his own.
With the five-out lineup on the floor, the defensive challenge wasn't on the Warriors' side.
After all, they'd been rotating defenders on Han all series—George, Draymond, even Klay.
Whether it was four shooters or five, the physical matchup stayed the same.
Their real problem?
Offense.
Without Gasol on the floor, there was no mismatch to hunt.
The Warriors had to rely on set plays in the half court—and that slowed everything down.
Yes, Curry and Thompson were elite off-ball movers.
But against the five-out's tight rotations and fast switches, the quality of their looks dropped, and so did their efficiency.
This is where the gap between Paul George and Kevin Durant became obvious.
No matter how hot George was, he didn't have KD's unstoppable isolation game.
Meanwhile, on the other end…
Han was cooking.
Kerr still refused to double, so he kept sending fresh bodies to the low block.
George didn't work? Try Draymond.
Draymond got beat? Try Klay.
But like Barkley had said—this was MJ territory.
One-on-one in the post?
Nobody was stopping Han Sen.
The tide turned completely the moment Lue deployed the five-out.
Without mismatches to exploit, the Warriors' offense lagged behind.
Han's post game? Like clockwork.
By the end of the first quarter, the Kings had come back to take the lead—34–30.
Han had already scored 23 points.
And every one of them came exactly where he wanted them—in the post, at his pace.
In the second quarter, Kerr finally broke.
He knew Han too well.
Give him an inch, and he'd blow the door wide open.
Against a five-out setup, Kerr finally sent the double.
But all that did was show fans a different version of Han Sen.
If the first quarter Han felt like Grizzlies-era Han,
then the second quarter was Cavs-era Han.
Because this version of the five-out lineup?
It was basically the one-star, four-shooter system Han used to run in Cleveland—just without a true big.
And now, the others started getting looks.
At first, Gay and Mitchell both missed open threes.
Their shooting wasn't as reliable as the Splash Brothers.
Kerr even started to regret not sending the double earlier.
But then came Tatum and Hield.
Back-to-back triples.
From the Spurs to the Pelicans, these rookies had taken hit after hit, learning how to survive playoff defenses.
Now?
They were battle-tested.
Not everyone would be hot every night.
But it was rare for all of them to be cold.
And the five-out lineup was so mobile.
When Mitchell and Gay's shots weren't falling, they slid to the weak side and started cutting off the ball—putting pressure on the defense and creating cleaner looks for the hot hands: Tatum and Hield.
By halftime, the Kings had taken a commanding 62–48 lead over the Warriors.
Han Sen had 32 points, 5 rebounds, and 7 assists in just two quarters. The Kings had hit 7 threes in the half—6 of them coming in the second quarter alone.
There was no doubt now—Tyronn Lue's five-out strategy had worked.
Just as he predicted, this type of lineup wouldn't work against teams like the Bucks, Celtics, or even the Pelicans. Why?
Because those teams had dominant big men who could crush a five-out lineup in the paint.
But the Warriors didn't.
Forget dominant—they didn't even have a legit big.
Steve Kerr's stubborn devotion to his offensive ideology had finally exposed the Warriors' biggest flaw.
In fact, if the Kings had any other coach—if this five-out system had never been deployed—this game wouldn't look anything like it does now.
Warriors fans were already roasting Kerr on social media.
Last summer, Dwight Howard was reportedly interested in joining the Warriors—but Kerr didn't even give him a look.
Of course, Kerr wasn't paying attention to the outside noise.
To start the second half, he deployed his own version of "Death Lineup."
It was the only card he had left.
To be fair, it did slow the Kings' other players down a bit.
But without a rim protector, even double-teaming Han Sen couldn't slow down his low-post dominance.
That's what made Lue's five-out system so deadly.
Yes, the strategy itself was extreme—but its true power came from Han Sen.
In a game without shot-blockers?
Han's post game was damn near unguardable.
If you played a center, you'd get torched by the five-out.
If you didn't? Han would feast in the post.
What the Warriors were facing now was exactly what their own opponents had faced years ago when they first unleashed the Death Lineup.
What goes around comes around.
The longer the game went on, the bigger the lead grew.
Kings fans were on their feet the entire time.
By the end of the third quarter, the Kings had blown the lead open—up by 20.
A team down 0–2 had completely flipped Game 3 by the third quarter.
No one would've believed it if they hadn't seen it.
But history had seen this kind of thing before.
Just earlier this same year, the Bucks had gone up 2–0 on the Raptors, only for Toronto to flip the series after Kawhi Leonard started guarding Giannis.
From that moment on, they won four straight and took the series 4–2.
Finding your opponent's fatal flaw is hard.
But if you find it—everything can change.
Final score: 128–113.
The Kings cruised to a blowout win at home and cut the series deficit to 1–2.
But unlike some random "Han Sen goes nuclear" or "Kings get hot from three" performance, this wasn't luck.
This was a tactical shift.
A momentum swing on par with Giannis injuring Kyrie in the East.
---
A week later, the Conference Finals in both East and West were over.
The Bucks beat the Celtics 4–2.
Once Kyrie went down, the Celtics' confidence cracked.
Al Horford even tried to undercut Giannis in Game 4.
But Giannis had been ready—he avoided the contact and drew a flagrant. Horford was ejected.
And with that, Boston lost all composure.
In many ways, Giannis was starting to look like LeBron.
Not just in playstyle, but in how he won games—not pretty, not clean, but by any means necessary.
If the Bucks won the title, people joked Giannis should wear the championship ring on his foot.
Out West, things were way more dramatic.
The Kings went the full seven games to beat the Warriors 4–3.
Yes, Lue had exposed the Warriors' weakness—but the Kings weren't always consistent.
And the Warriors' composure was leagues above the Celtics.
Take Game 4, for example.
The Kings' young core collectively collapsed.
If it hadn't been for Han Sen dropping 60 points, they would've gone down 1–3.
In Game 5, the Warriors exploded and took the all-important Game 5 to go up 3–2.
But thankfully, in the final two games, the Kings' young guns stepped up.
No more collective meltdowns.
And they pulled off the comeback.
Nobody saw this coming.
Polls and predictions had almost unanimously favored a Celtics vs. Warriors Finals.
If Boston had won, it would've been Durant's storybook ending—finally earning his ring as the guy.
If Golden State had won, it would've completed Draymond's legacy equation—the perfect arc.
But instead?
Giannis ended Durant's dream with one step.
And Lue's five-out madness left the Warriors humiliated and helpless.
Maybe Han was right all along…
"Everyone has their fate."
---
TNT Postgame — Conference Finals Wrap-Up
Ernie Johnson: Back here on Inside the NBA, and the stage is set. Bucks. Kings. NBA Finals. But first, we gotta break down what went down in these Conference Finals—on both sides. Charles?
Charles Barkley: Listen, man… this been one of the wildest playoffs I've seen in a minute. Let's start with the East. That Celtics-Bucks series? That got ugly.
Shaquille O'Neal: Yup. Soon as Kyrie went down, it was over. I don't care what nobody say—Boston still had talent, but mentally? They was done.
Kenny Smith: And you saw it. Game 4, Horford tryin' to take Giannis out—like, literally. That ain't Celtics basketball. That's frustration.
Charles: Giannis turned into vintage LeBron, man. Put his head down, kept comin'. Ain't no floppin', ain't no crying—he just hoopin'. And you saw it when KD went down. That was his moment.
Shaq: I'm tellin' y'all, Giannis a killer. That boy might put the ring on his toe if he wins this thing.
Ernie(chuckles): Well, from toe rings to five-out schemes—let's talk the West.
Kenny: Man, look—everyone counted the Kings out. Down 0–2, the world saying sweep. Then Ty Lue breaks out that five-out madness, and Han goes into complete takeover mode.
Shaq: Big-time coaching. You make that switch, you better have the dude to anchor it—and Han delivered. They had no answer. George, Draymond, Klay—they tried. They failed.
Charles: Draymond out there defending ghosts.
Kenny: And once Han got cooking? He started sprayin' it out. Tatum, Hield, Mitchell—they stepped up. That wasn't just Han. That was the team buying in.
Ernie: Let's not forget—Game 4, Han dropped sixty to save the season. Game 7, they closed it out.
Shaq: That boy different. That ain't basketball. That's legacy work.
Charles: And now you got Giannis on the other side. Two freight trains, one ring. I love this.
Ernie: Prediction time?
Shaq: I don't bet against Han. Kings in 6.
Kenny: Giannis been on a mission… but I'm rollin' with the Emperor. Kings in 7.
Charles: I'm just here for the show. But if Giannis pulls this off? Foot ring, toe ring, statue in Greece, whatever he wants.
Ernie: When we come back—Finals preview, and we'll check in with Stephen A. for his take on "Han vs. Giannis: Who really owns the league?"
(End of Chapter)