Jesus. So this is what clutch looks like. Enough players accomplished game winners last night to make to make it all look like providence. And not a single one of them involved Kobe Byrant. Thanks to Derek Fisher.
Of the four buzzer beaters last, Derek Fisher's game winner was probably the most impressive. With 3.1 seconds on the clock and the game tied, the 6'1, 36 year-old drove to the rim on the basis of an opening, that in the NBA, isn't <em>really</em> an opening at all. It's more like the illusion of an opening, or at the very least an ephemeral hole in the key that only a handful of players can physically cope with.
Derek Fisher is not one of these players, in fact he is the opposite. And as a grizzled vet, you can be damn sure he understood how fast and hard the help-defense would swarm around his impulsive little plan. Yet despite the odds, Fisher caught the inbound pass meant for Kobe, looked at the league's most clutch player gesticulating wildly for ball and beetled to the hoop like a groundhog.
The tear drop was pure vet. The margins for failure were incredible. Fisher let the ball fly with 0.1 seconds on the clock, 6'11 DeAndre Jordan was a millimeter away from getting the block and Kobe, visibly mopping in the background, was pissed.
Here's who else carried their team in a night that looked touched by the Man Upstairs....
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