No matter what anybody says, the San Antonio Spurs came out on top because the Detroit Pistons made a costly mistake.
Roughly 5 seconds left. Pistons are up by two. Robert Horry inbounds to Manu Ginobili on the corner of the court. And then, something happens. History repeats itself.
Three years ago, Robert Horry, who was a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, caught a ball tipped out by Vlade Divac of the Sacramento Kings. If you were a Kings fan then and you were able to watch that last play, you would still wince while reading this. It was the dying seconds of the game and the ball mysteriously ended up in Horry's hands at the top of the arc. He let it fly with the game clock winding down to zero.
Swish.
Lakers tie the series at two. That was all they had to do to win the NBA championship that year. Everything else was a blur. Instead of being down 3-1, he managed to single-handedly destroy the Sacramento Kings. That was all the lift that they needed. Back then when Horry was asked about how lucky his shot was this was what he replied:
"A lucky shot is one of those guys who has no form," he said. "If you look at this shot, it was straight form. Vlade shouldn't have tipped it out there. It wasn't no luck shot. I've been doing that all my career. He should know. He better read a paper or something."
Good case coming from someone who has been there and done that. After all, he already won two rings with the Rockets from years past.
Now, it seems that Horry has come up big again. This time, for the San Antonio Spurs.
With the Pistons leading by two, Horry was assigned to inbound. For those of you who watched the game; for those of you who remembers his late-game heroics three years ago, you would have seen it coming a mile away. I knew I did. I was watching with my sister during those last seconds. When I saw Horry was the one inbounding and that Rasheed Wallace wasn't in front of him, I knew what was going to happen right then and there. I even spelled it out for her.And it happened exactly as I said it would.
Horry inbounds to Ginobili; Rasheed doubles on Manu Ginobili; Horry gets it back and calmly hits a three. Spurs up by one. Game over.
Now, control of the series is undisputably in San Antonio's favor. They win next game, and they're the champions. I do hope that this series goes to seven. I hope that it goes down to the wire. Like what one online columnist said, he has a dream for this year's NBA Finals.
And lastly, and maybe most importantly, I want seven because I have a dream, and it goes like this: Seventh game, seven overtimes, 132 personal fouls, and just two men left standing. That's right: Darko and Rasho for all the marbles.
Wishful thinking, isn't it? Then again, everything in this series is unpredictable. Whatever happens next game, I'm still happy that Game 5 turned out to be one for the ages.
No comments:
Post a Comment