It’s a beautiful thing when exactly the right person occupies exactly the right place at exactly the right moment. If you need someone to gather a loose ball, spin, and bury a 50-foot jumper in half a second, the man for the job is Rasheed Wallace. And on March 26, 2007, that’s what happened:
Remember the time Rasheed Wallace hit the unlikeliest of halfcourt buzzer-beaters
The SportsCenter clip gives you the full context. The Nuggets led the Pistons by three. They gained possession off a Detroit miss with just over one second left and Denver coach George Karl called timeout to draw up his team’s inbound play. An extra cautious move with the side effect of permitting a more set defense, but probably no harm done.
All the Nuggets needed to do was inbound, hold the ball for a second, and go home winners. All they needed to not do was let the ball slip into the hands of a man who spent basically all his free time practicing trick shots and long-distance heaves.
Well, Carmelo Anthony mishandled the inbound, leaving Wallace exactly enough time to wheel around in one motion and tie the game at the buzzer. He hit another big three in overtime to secure an extremely unlikely Detroit victory.
Weird, difficult shots were kinda Sheed’s thing, as this fun mini documentary makes clear:
And he made sure everyone knew it was no big deal:
“We shoot those all the time before the game,” Wallace said. “This one went in, but it isn’t like it won a championship or anything.”
So did Karl, who called the timeout preceding the shot, and who tried so hard not to sound mad while shifting blame to his players:
“You could give him a hundred and he wouldn’t make one, but he made one,” he said. “I personally would have liked the ball to be thrown more toward the rim or the corner, but you can’t criticize a lucky shot. That was a lucky shot.”
GEORGE MAAAAAAAD.
Rasheed Wallace made George Karl so mad, guys. George Karl gave Rasheed Wallace the opportunity to perform a feat he’d practiced his whole career, and Sheed devoured that opportunity. Good job, Rasheed Wallace.
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