heres another

Sweet, I'll have to put that in with my Horry Shot. Thanks.

Kind of a cool article. That's exactly how it felt.

By Eric Neel
Page 2

The second -- the four-tenths-of-a-second -- it was over, I called my buddy Wes.

His little girl Ella was screaming in the background, apparently dancing around their Pasadena living room like a lottery winner.

"I gotta call you back," he said. "Ella's kind of losing it right now."

Winning three straight has turned the Lakers' frowns upside down.
We hung up and I waited for the call back, staring at the phone, bouncing my knees like a meth addict hungry for a fix.


Fisher's shot, the whole last 12 seconds of Game 5, wouldn't be real to me until I relived them with him.

My cell rang and I flipped it open to hear him laughing on the other end. The kind of laugh that comes with knee slaps and head shakes. The kind of laugh you laugh when the girl, against all odds, says yes.

"Four-tenths isn't even technically possible, is it?," I asked. "I thought it had to be at least six-tenths."

"I almost feel bad for the Spurs fans," he said. "I mean I don't, but it's as close as I'll ever come."

"Yeah ... the poor bastards," I said.

And he laughed again.

And then we just sat on the phone for a while, watching the replays on TVs a couple hundred miles apart, not saying anything, worried that somehow we'd kill the feeling, or that the gods would swoop down and take the shot away from us.

We weren't 36-year-old dads with mortgages. We were geeked-out kids itching to find a ball and a court.

I swear, if you don't love the NBA playoffs, I don't want to know you.

If you don't love the way the Spurs and Lakers went at it like Ali and Frazier for 47-plus minutes, trading roundhouses and body-blows, I got no use for you.

Yeah, it was an ugly game, sometimes almost too ugly to watch; but you couldn't turn away from it because there was so much bleeding, beating heart out there.

Shaq and Duncan gave up their offensive games to give each other forearm shivers and drive each other to the baseline.

Fisher took charges and Bowen took 'em right back.

Kobe, Ginobili, George, and Parker squeezed off shots in traffic.

Nothing was cheap. Points came like bits of rock John Henry busted off the mountainside, one exhausting swing at a time.

Then came the Spurs comeback and the Lakers' two-for-forever drought.


I felt like I was Sherilyn Fenn in "Boxing Helena" just watching it, one body part after another cut away. Freaking torture. The world started collapsing during that stretch. First I'm in the fetal position, then I'm in the womb, then I'm a dividing cell, and finally I'm a speck of gene on some double-helix ride to the fiery pits of hell.

Tim Duncan could hit a shot with his jersey in his face, too.
If you don't think a stretch like that is the stuff of epic poetry and tragic novels, I pity you.


Then came Kobe's shot with about 11 ticks to go. He and Malone had worked effective double- and triple-pick sequences all night, but the others were tight fits. This one opened up like a swinging door. My first thought was that Kobe was too open, that he'd come into the shot with too much spring and push. But he dialed it back mid-flight and hit it.

The elation came in waves. It came up and out of the hole I was in for most of the rest of the quarter. It carried with it all the clanging rims that came before it.

More than that, it carried with it the whole weird Laker saga. Phil's future was in it. The way he and Kobe have never clicked was in it. And the lifetime of hunger GP and Malone bring every time they lace up was in it in spades.

The Spurs are a great team and Duncan is a helluva player. But they've got nothing like the drama the Lakes do.

That's part of why Duncan's fadeaway was such a killer. Brilliant as it was, it felt cheap and lucky. It felt unfair. Frivolous. Like it was just there to spite me, to mock my Laker heart. I couldn't respect it. I could only hate it.

And hating it made me sick to my stomach. I wanted to cry. I wanted to break something.

And if you don't see that, and if you've never felt that, and if the NBA playoffs don't do that kind of thing to you, I just don't get you.

Because even on a night when there was more slugging than flowing, even on a night when the game was miles away from its smooth creativity and lyrical genius, in the end, the game hung there, swinging wildly from sorrow to joy and back to sorrow again in fractions of a second. It turned me to mush. It made me feel invincible. And it leveled me like Wile E. Coyote under an anvil.

And that's where I thought it would end. That's the call I thought I'd be making to Wes. The commiseration call. The bitter kids, cursing the fates and smack-talking Duncan in the feeble hope it'd take away the sting.

But then there was Derek, and a ball I can't believe he caught, let alone shot, let alone put in.

And then there was that blissed-out call to Wes and a feeling that mainlined from tonight through Horry in '02 to Magic in '87 to Jerry West from half-court in '70.

I swear, if you think the NBA playoffs are too long, or too slow, or too ugly, you're dead to me.

But if you're with me on that phone tonight, or even if you're sitting somewhere in San Antone, doing the commiseration thing, smack-talking Fisher's lucky ass, and cursing mine ...

You're my friend for life.

At least he admits it!

I gotta tell you, that was me and my 8-year old. He was doing the happy dance while I wildly called my best friend in So. Cal and then posted on the planet. It was like the magical Laker-Celtic/Pistons past. I loved every heart-wrenching/joy filled minute of that.

It was just like Dante running that kick back against the donkeys. Except this time I wasn't there live, I was at home.

Just when I start to hate you you make me realize why I can't, but fug the lakers anyway!

ROFL

That was by far and away my best live sports moment! Loudest, shakiest, cryingest, excitedness, and any other real/fake positive adjective you can think of. MAGICAL DAY! right jazz or any other planet member that was there?

Yep! :thumb:

It took 30 minutes for me to just calm down. My buddy called me from a bar in LA that was going off like they all just won lotto. He says " there are a few Spurs fans here, their leaving right now" ROFL I was like I'll bet. That was truly awesome, one for the ages. We need to polish them off them off now and that shot will be remembered as one of the best ever.

Whats ironic about this is...not 2 minutes earlier.....the scene was flipped flopped......Spurs fans were going crazy..and Lakers fans were sulking....oh..you have to love this crazy thing called sports!

It will look nice in a matching side by side with the Horry shot from a couple of years ago!

Yep! You know I was thinking this morning of what kind of effect that a possible Iraqi final 8 or 4 appearance in Olympics soccer would do to their psyche as a country. Hmmmm

That's true, when Duncan hit that shot my livingroom fell silent followed by a "I can't believe he just made that shot" reaction. Funny thing is Duncans shot would have been immortalized if Fisher had missed. Now Fishers shot should rank up there as one of the best ever.

Since there are some Laker fans here does anyone have a shot of Magic's game 4 winning shyhook over the Celtics or Jerry Wests halfcourt shot from 1970?

Exactly, I wouldn't mind forking out a few buck for a real good shot of both or even a poster.

Hmmm...maybe they should just fix the games and let them win it all this year? Couldnt hurt could it?? Id be willing to let them win a few if it would help the country unite