The Dallas Mavericks should never have been in a position to force overtime against the Chicago Bulls with a second left in Friday’s game, but somehow, they were. They had trailed by 10 points with one minute remaining and somehow cut that lead to three thanks to horrendous Chicago inbounding and despite a couple questionable calls against them. But there they were, with 2.6 seconds left and no timeouts, needing one shot to tie the game.
The Mavericks nearly forced OT with a perfectly designed play from Rick Carlisle
Dallas missed the shot, but you couldn’t ask for a more creative play.
They literally could not have drawn up a better play.
The shot missed. The Mavericks lost 127-124. But we should marvel at the beautiful design that Rick Carlisle scribbled up on the whiteboard all the same. Let’s run through what happened there.
- Dennis Smith sets up as the inbounder.
- Yogi Ferrell and Wesley Matthews cross the court looking like decoys.
- Smith throws a perfect pass to Maxi Kleber, who has popped up to the top of the three-point line.
- Kleber catches the pass and immediately throws to Ferrell, who has scooted to the left wing for a relatively open look.
- Ferrell catches the ball a little lower than he would like, and his shot clangs off front iron.
There’s almost no other situation where you could get a 40.1 percent three-point shooter like Ferrell a look that good off an opposite-side baseline out-of-bounds play like that, but the Mavericks did it. Sure, it wasn’t a perfect catch-and-shoot opportunity, and sure, Ferrell didn’t make it. But the Mavericks’ execution deserves to be lauded all the same.
