Note: Excerpts taken from a proof copy. Actual text and page numbers subject to change in final edition.
From the Introduction
Dick Motta hadn’t been here before — one victory away from an NBA championship — but he had been here. This place, this stage, where possessions were magnified, where decisions were scrutinized, where careers were defined, where, for two hours, bodies were tingling.
Game 7.
Motta said his team was in the right frame of mind, but was he? The 46-year-old coach — wearing tan pants, a white shirt and a maroon blazer with lapels larger than folded five-star-restaurant napkins — walked the long corridor from the locker room to the basketball court at the Seattle Coliseum, where the Sonics had won 22 consecutive games.
That streak surely meant more misery for Motta, who at this point was 1-3 in Game 7s, two of which had been ulcer-inducers. His Chicago Bulls lost a late lead to the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1973 Western Conference semifinals. Then, in the same round in 1975, Motta’s Bulls lost to the Golden State Warriors after holding a double-digit advantage.
In Seattle, Motta turned to a good friend and told him that his slow walk alongside his assistant coaches and medical staff reminded him of the execution scene in the 1938 movie “Angels with Dirty Faces.”
“It was just like James Cagney going to the electric chair,” Motta recalled. “We stopped. The atmosphere was that thick. I told everyone with us, ‘It’s too bad we can’t have a lot of little bottles here, take the corks off and close them, and sell this atmosphere for a quarter a shot.’”
Such business would have made Motta a wealthy man.
From Page 26-27
It wasn't a long jump shot splashing through the net. It wasn’t a slam dunk powering through the iron. It wasn’t a graceful hook shot banking off the glass.
No, the most famous play in the history of basketball was a deflection, an anticipatory everyday tip that might not even earn a high five during a Saturday-morning run at the local gymnasium.
Context, however, is everything. Drop that steal into the bubbling mix of Game 7 of the 1965 Eastern finals — another thrilling Celtics-76ers, Russell-Chamberlain showdown — and it becomes the final ingredient that set the hoop world on fire.
But while John Havlicek’s famous theft sent the Celtics on to another championship, for the more than 40 years that followed, crucial details surrounding those final five seconds remained a mystery. The big, unanswered question: Did Wilt Chamberlain, physically the most imposing player in the history of basketball, shy away from taking the final shot in the final seconds of a final elimination game?
From Page 157-159
Pressing forward? Or pulling back? The approach depends on the personality.
Jack Sikma, who played in four Game 7s, looked to be aggressive.
“One thing about the playoffs, about seventh games especially, is that your focus is so good, you’re so plugged in, that they tend to dull out the rest of your life,” he recalled. “I remember the important thing is to be ready to go and try and be a factor early in the game. It’s hard (for your opponent) to catch up if you get off to a tough start. I wanted to make sure that in the first five minutes of the game I was going to make somebody guard me and be as active as I could. And hopefully get through those first five minutes without putting myself in foul trouble.”
Bob Weiss, who also played in four Game 7s, tried to downplay the situation.
“I found out in my career that the best way for me to play was to not get up, not be nervous,” he recalled. “I went through games where I got myself pumped up and excited, and I didn’t play as well in those games. I played much better when I tried to keep it as cool as possible and just let the head of the game take you where you needed to go.”
In the 1988 Western Semifinals against the Utah Jazz, Lakers guard Byron Scott was energized by teammate Kurt Rambis, who gave him the ultimate confidence boost.
“Kurt came up to me and said, ‘You’re going to make your first seven shots. Be ready to shoot,’” said Scott, who made Rambis’s hunch come true by indeed hitting his first seven shots. “It was just one of those things my teammates had so much confidence in me as I did them. I always looked at a seventh game as a time to shine. I was just extremely focused and ready to play.”
The pressure of a seventh-game can reach an even higher level when the outcome is still in doubt in the closing seconds. On 29 occasions, players have attempted shots with less than 10 seconds to go with an opportunity to tie the game or put their teams ahead (see chart, previous page). They’ve come through seven times, most recently when the Kings’ Mike Bibby hit two free throws with 8 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter against the Lakers in the 2002 Western semifinals. Los Angeles won the game in overtime, however, on the Kings’ home court.
“Winning a Game 7 on an opponent’s home floor, it doesn’t get any better than that,” said Greg Ballard, who helped the Bullets beat the Sonics in Seattle to win the 1978 championship. “It’s just a great, exhilarating feeling that you get, a great natural high, just unbelievable. It’s a feeling that everybody should experience.”
For many, nothing else compares — not even winning election to high office.
“People ask me, ‘What was your greatest thrill, winning the NBA championship or being elected to the Senate three times?’ The biggest honor was being elected to the Senate (New Jersey, 1978-84-90),” Knicks forward Bill Bradley said. “But when you were elected to the Senate, you went to work the next day after the election for six years to prove that the people weren’t wrong.
“But the biggest thrill was winning the NBA championship, and the first one where you have your fists in the air, chills going up and down your spine, a smile on your face so wide that it aches, and you know when you win, you are the best in the world. So, it was a very special thing for me. It was a milestone in my life that I had been on a team and we had won a championship.”
From Page 239
The Chicago Bulls were weary, desperately trying to hang on during a playoff run that would ultimately yield their sixth title in eight seasons. Never during that run had they been pushed quite this hard.
Chicago trailed by 13 points in the first half, missed 10 consecutive shots in the fourth quarter, and bricked 17 free throws as well as the majority of its field-goal tries.
And the incomparable Michael Jordan was stumbling along with his teammates — too short on jumpers, too strong on layups. In the past, Jordan’s body of work had been so vast and so spectacular that the little things never fully came into view. Not today.
So, with much going wrong, Jordan became one of the guys. He blanketed Reggie Miller, limiting him to just one field-goal try over the final 12 minutes. And despite being 10 inches shorter, Jordan won a jump ball from Rik Smits that led to Steve Kerr’s game-tying 3-pointer with about five minutes to go.
“Michael had the ability to really focus and understand what’s at stake and block everything out around him,” recalled Bulls assistant coach Jim Cleamons. “He was able to shed all doubt and deal with the present.”
From Page 264-265
The game's defining moment was reduced to a single element: aggression.
For two star players, however, that trait — given the time-score situation — represented a difference in understanding.
For Dirk Nowitzki, aggression was a positive sign of growth, of leadership, of embracing an NBA-playoff mentality.
For Manu Ginobili, it was ill-advised, yet consistent with how he does everything on a basketball court, and rooted in the mind-set of someone who believes he can make every play, every time.
The Dallas Mavericks, their earlier 20-point lead now a distant memory, trailed 104-101 with 32.2 seconds to go. After a timeout, Nowitzki circled to the left high-post and caught the ball with the San Antonio Spurs’ Bruce Bowen already glued to him. Settle for a jumper? Maybe last year. Now? No way. Nowitzki used a hard left-handed dribble to power into the paint and toward the basket.
Defensively, the correct strategic play would have been to allow the two points, maintain the lead, force Dallas to foul.
“Get the ball back with a one-point lead, put your best free-throw shooters in, and you make it a free-throw contest,” said Hall-of-Famer Rick Barry.
Ginobili, however, went to block the shot, this despite only 26 blocks in 65 games as well as being nearly six inches shorter than Nowitzki. But Ginobili’s gift is his unwavering belief. Less than 10 seconds earlier he never flinched in delivering the cold-blooded 3-pointer that had put San Antonio ahead for the first time at 104-101. Ditto in Game 6, when he pumped in 30 points as the Spurs fought off elimination on the road.
With Nowitzki nearly at the rim and higher than his foe, Ginobili’s block attempt had become futile. Ginobili fouled the Mavs’ star hard across the left arm (pictured on this book’s cover). As the ball began to spin free, Nowitzki was able to maintain just enough control to give it a chance. The ball dropped in, Ginobili was called for a foul, and Spurs coach Gregg Popovich turned away.
Said Nowitzki, “I saw everything slipping away, the great season we had. If there’s a drive to the lane, just take it in there.”
“He willed it to the basket,” added teammate Jerry Stackhouse.
Afterward, a disconsolate Ginobili admitted he had made a big mistake. The basis of his attempt was surprise, he said. And, of course, his belief.
Barry summed up mindset of the entire hoop nation: “I don’t know what Ginobili was thinking about. You let Dirk make the layup.”
Nowitzki’s ensuing free throw tied the game, which went into overtime after Ginobili missed on a last-second drive and Tim Duncan’s rushed putback was partially blocked by Nowitzki.
The Mavericks then ruled the extra session — 4-for-4 from the field and 2-for-2 from the free-throw line on their first five possessions — for a 114-108 lead.
“This is a testament to our perseverance,” said Jason Terry. “We showed a lot of character.”
Game 7 exceeded even the lofty expectations of a series between intense same-state rivals who had both reached lofty victory totals (San Antonio 63, Dallas 60) and saw the Spurs rally from a 3-1 deficit.