Last Shot Lingering

Many minds linger still over the last play of regulation in last night’s Celtic overtime loss to the Miami Heat.  These minds, many of them brilliant, some of the Celtic, wonder how it could go so wrong.

You know Doc’s reputation as a genius at drawing up out-of-bounds plays.  As I always say, in Doc we trust.  And Doc called for the right play, one that has worked hundreds of times, one that has won ball games.

But something happened with the execution of the play and we were all left scratching our heads and wondering, “How the hell did Paul end up taking a 22 foot fall away jumper with James all over him".  The shot came close, it hit rim, but it clanked up and off and into overtime we went where the gassed out old Celtics gave up the ghost and the game. 

That was our game at that moment to win. 

What went wrong?

Doc designed that play as a play with at least 3 options, each one of them good:  either Paul, Ray, or KG should get a good look from a spot on the floor where they're comfortable.

It goes like this:  ball out of bounds left side ¾ court: Ray takes the inbounds pass and  hands it off  to Paul, and then Ray curls toward the key as KG, starting down below the foul line starts up toward top of the key.  The idea is that Ray picks off  KG’s man freeing up KG so he can go out to the wing set a pick on Paul’s defender setting up a potential pick and roll.  Rondo and Delonte had been hiding out in the left corner taking their defenders with them, and they begin to move out as the play develops allowing Ray to curl through the lane and set up in his favorite spot in the left corner.

We might have had one of those good options, Paul on the wing from his sweet spot, KG rolling to the hoop, or Ray from the corner except for one thing:  Ray and KG got tangled up near the top of the key as Ray went to set his pick.  They bumped into each other, tried to go around each other, and did it again.  Meanwhile the clock is ticking and Paul is wondering what is going on and waving at KG for the pick to develop, but time ran out, and with 5 seconds left Paul went into his move, but James was right there with him as Paul went up into his fade-away jumper hotly contested by James.  Clank, boom.

Overtime.  You know the rest. 

Here are a few clips from the post game interviews.