Game 5 of the 2010 series between the LA Lakers and Phoenix Suns presented a crossroads. As time expired, the Lakers had one last chance to win, and in doing so, avoid the infamy of a terrible collapse. The Suns, meanwhile, could force overtime, steal a victory, and perhaps make an unexpected run to the Finals.
Let's visit that moment. Kobe Bryant has the ball. Everyone's mad at (the man formerly known as) Ron Artest. Steve Nash and Jason Richardson just made miracles for the Suns. What's on everyone's mind? What happens next? Before we find out, let's rewind.
Let's visit that moment. Kobe Bryant has the ball. Everyone's mad at (the man formerly known as) Ron Artest. Steve Nash and Jason Richardson just made miracles for the Suns. What's on everyone's mind? What happens next? Before we find out, let's rewind.
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00:00 (dramatic music)
00:01 Well, this is a pretty big moment.
00:04 We're in Los Angeles for game five
00:06 of the 2010 Western Conference Finals
00:09 between the Lakers and the Phoenix Suns.
00:11 The game and the series are tied, for now.
00:15 With three seconds left,
00:17 LA's got one last chance to win in regulation
00:21 and go up three games to two.
00:23 Mess up and Phoenix might steal a huge road victory.
00:28 This is a massive shot,
00:29 and everyone in this building knows who's gonna take it.
00:33 Before we see that,
00:34 let's take the temperature of the room.
00:37 How's everyone feeling?
00:39 Kinda terrible, it turns out.
00:41 Let's rewind.
00:42 Someone who has never seen basketball
00:49 could still deduce that this guy,
00:51 being chased by multiple defenders, is pretty important.
00:55 That's Kobe Bryant, and him shooting this game-winning
00:58 attempt is the most obvious thing ever,
01:01 which says a lot about Kobe.
01:03 Kobe is in a nice spot right now, career-wise.
01:07 Last season, Bryant shed the heavy burden
01:11 of having won zero titles
01:12 without Shaquille O'Neal as his teammate.
01:15 Perhaps because of the work it took
01:17 to win that fourth NBA championship,
01:20 Kobe's body has shown some wear and tear
01:22 in his 14th season.
01:24 He missed more games in '09-'10
01:27 than in the four previous regular seasons combined.
01:30 Ankle trouble, back trouble.
01:33 Bryant looked like a shell of himself
01:35 in parts of LA's first-round victory
01:37 against the OKC Thunder,
01:39 only recalibrating once he had a bunch
01:42 of fluid drained from his knee.
01:44 So yeah, in a way, it's been a season
01:47 of Kobe realizing he's in his 30s
01:50 and that parts of his body break sometimes.
01:53 But in another way, persevering through all that pain
01:57 has only burnished Kobe's legend.
02:00 He's played some terrific basketball
02:02 since the knee drainage,
02:04 not only scoring a ton, but tossing plenty of assists
02:07 in this series against the Suns.
02:09 In fact, if Kobe passes right now,
02:11 he could record his first career playoff triple-double.
02:15 Cool stat, but we all know he's shooting,
02:18 and everyone wants him to,
02:20 which, if you look really closely,
02:23 is kinda nuts.
02:25 On top of all the other nagging injuries,
02:28 this does not look like a right hand
02:30 you want shooting the shot to break a series tie,
02:34 so let's talk about it.
02:36 Kobe has famously played through an injury
02:38 to this hand before.
02:40 He tore a ligament in his right pinky in 2008
02:42 and just declined surgery.
02:45 Years later, he still hasn't fixed it.
02:47 So the paw was already compromised.
02:50 And then, in the middle of this season,
02:52 just over five months ago,
02:54 Kobe caught a bad pass that caused an avulsion fracture
02:57 of the index finger on that same hand.
03:00 Sounds gross.
03:01 And yet, Kobe not only played through that,
03:04 but shot through it.
03:06 A custom splint from ingenious Lakers trainer
03:09 Gary Vitti helped.
03:10 So too did some advice from a new Lakers assistant coach,
03:14 Chuck Person, a man whose very name is a violent command.
03:18 In the middle of his career as a dead-eye shooter,
03:22 the player they called the Rifleman
03:24 suffered a nearly identical injury to Kobe's
03:27 and yet remained a great shooter.
03:30 Person joined the Lakers as a coach before this season.
03:33 Coach Chuck wasn't really hired to help Kobe,
03:36 we'll come back to that,
03:37 but he noticed a slight irregularity
03:39 in Bryant's shooting form.
03:41 Too much weight on the index finger.
03:44 So Person saw the wrecked finger
03:46 as an opportunity to suggest a change.
03:49 And Kobe, Kobe took the note.
03:53 And if you're looking for evidence
03:55 that Kobe got good advice,
03:57 I submit the events of December 4th,
04:00 December 16th,
04:02 January 1st,
04:05 January 31st,
04:07 February 23rd,
04:10 and March 9th,
04:12 when Kobe got it done from a spot
04:14 very close to where he is right this moment.
04:17 Yeah, Kobe hit six last second
04:21 game-winning shots this season.
04:23 More than that if you expand your search a little bit.
04:26 Almost all those game-winning buckets
04:29 happened after Bryant avulsed his pointer finger.
04:33 Kobe's excellence at the buzzer
04:35 played a huge part in LA edging the rest
04:38 of the excellent Western Conference for the one seed,
04:41 which is why they have home court advantage
04:44 in this critical game five.
04:46 It's why Kobe is the undisputed man for this moment.
04:50 Do not mistake that certainty for comfort though.
04:54 Even if Kobe manages to rescue the Lakers yet again,
04:57 the fact that they need rescuing at all is shocking.
05:02 The Suns are alive and they really shouldn't be.
05:05 That's true long-term and short-term.
05:08 Phoenix was supposed to have already taken
05:11 their best shots at a title in the middle of the decade.
05:15 Mike D'Antoni ran the fastest offense on earth,
05:18 seven seconds or less.
05:20 MVP Steve Nash, Supreme finisher Amar'e Stoudemire,
05:24 do-everything star Sean Marion.
05:27 Everybody ran, everybody shot, nobody defended, it worked.
05:32 The Suns dominated regular seasons
05:34 and claimed some huge playoff wins,
05:36 but they never made it to the pinnacle,
05:38 not even to the NBA Finals.
05:40 So Phoenix GM Steve Kerr retooled,
05:44 compromising their speedy style
05:45 for desperate stabs at glory.
05:48 When that team didn't win, out went Coach D'Antoni.
05:52 His replacement, Coach Terry Porter,
05:55 didn't make it a full season.
05:57 The '09 Suns didn't even make the playoffs.
06:00 That could have been the end of that story.
06:03 Of the seven seconds or less Suns core,
06:06 only Nash and Stoudemire remain.
06:08 Nash is 36.
06:10 Stoudemire has a history of injuries
06:12 and an expiring contract.
06:15 Entering this season, even the smartest NBA observers
06:19 expected a campaign like last year's.
06:21 Maybe worse if Kerr decided to just trade Amar'e
06:24 before he hit free agency.
06:26 Alvin Gentry had other ideas.
06:29 An assistant coach throughout the D'Antoni days,
06:32 Gentry took over as an interim when Porter got fired,
06:35 which made this year his first full season
06:37 as Suns head coach.
06:39 And listen, the key players may not be here much longer,
06:42 but Coach Gentry made this season count.
06:45 It's been one last ride for seven seconds or less.
06:49 Top five in pace, number one in offense,
06:52 number one in three-point shooting,
06:54 who gives a shit about defense, 54 wins.
06:57 We are so back.
06:59 After last year's hiccup, the Suns survived the first round,
07:03 smoked rival Spurs in the second round,
07:06 and now find themselves within reach
07:08 of a trip to the finals.
07:09 Just when we all thought their contending window had shut.
07:13 So shout out to Alvin Gentry, who must be feeling,
07:18 oh, oh no.
07:19 Something Gentry ate before the game has betrayed him.
07:24 The broadcast said it was an avocado,
07:26 but sources say it was an artichoke with dip.
07:30 My guy has spent the biggest game of his coaching career
07:33 yakking on national TV.
07:36 Honestly though, Coach Gentry might not be
07:38 the sickest person in the room.
07:41 Because while all these Lakers fans
07:43 anticipate another Kobe buzzer beater,
07:45 they're also processing what just happened.
07:49 It was nauseating.
07:50 LA led by double digits for a huge stretch
07:55 of this second half.
07:56 They were up 11 at the 10-minute mark.
07:58 90 seconds ago, the Lakers still held a five-point edge.
08:02 To recall how the Suns pried that smaller window back open,
08:07 simply survey the floor.
08:08 If Phoenix wins, we'll remember Nash being
08:12 an absolute assassin in pick and rolls this quarter.
08:16 Just one pull-up ninja star after another,
08:19 chipping away at the double-digit deficit.
08:21 Jason Richardson is here under the basket.
08:25 If Richardson and the Suns box out on a miss
08:27 and get the job done in overtime,
08:29 Jason instantly becomes a Phoenix playoff legend.
08:33 Because when the Lakers failed to rebound this Nash miss
08:37 and this Richardson miss,
08:39 Richardson himself got another look at the tie
08:42 and finally found it off the goddamn glass.
08:46 - Yes!
08:47 He takes it home!
08:48 - So yeah, that'll put a pit in Lakers fans' stomachs.
08:53 But I'm sorry to say that the person
08:56 with the most on the line right now
08:58 isn't Kobe or anyone on the Suns.
09:01 It's the guy most responsible for 19,000 Lakers fans
09:05 feeling like they just ate poisoned artichokes.
09:08 It's Ron Artest,
09:10 who's just had a nightmare minute of basketball,
09:13 and it's even worse in context.
09:16 Almost a decade ago with the Indiana Pacers,
09:20 Ron Artest blossomed,
09:21 becoming the league's best defensive player
09:23 on one of the league's best defensive teams.
09:27 He was a singular force,
09:29 and those Pacers looked like potential champions
09:32 until all of the above came crashing down.
09:34 November 19th, 2004,
09:38 the malice at the palace.
09:40 Beer thrown at players,
09:42 punches thrown at fans,
09:44 Indiana's hopes of contention,
09:46 and Artest's superstar trajectory thrown off track.
09:51 If you sort of forgot about Artest since then,
09:54 I can't blame you.
09:55 He was suspended for the rest of the '05 season,
09:58 and then the Pacers traded him to Sacramento,
10:00 where he remained an effective but sub-all-star player
10:04 on a team nowhere as competitive as Indiana.
10:07 While Artest managed to avoid the grim headlines
10:12 that characterized his past,
10:14 those years in Sacramento did include
10:16 a few disruptive moments of aggression on the floor.
10:19 And last year with the Houston Rockets,
10:22 Artest made himself something of a Laker antagonist.
10:26 In the regular season, it was this mostly verbal,
10:30 slightly physical to-do with Kobe Bryant.
10:33 And then in a seven-game playoff series,
10:35 Artest got himself ejected twice.
10:38 Once in game two for getting in Kobe's face,
10:41 then again in game three
10:43 for this unnecessary foul on Pau Gasol.
10:45 Ron Artest was no friend of the Lakers,
10:50 and then he became a Laker.
10:52 The '09 champions remained
10:54 almost completely intact this season with one major change.
10:58 LA's defensive specialist Trevor Ariza
11:01 left to sign with the Rockets,
11:03 and Artest signed with the Lakers.
11:07 It wasn't always a comfortable swap.
11:09 That's why Chuck Person initially joined the staff,
11:12 just to help Ron find his way.
11:14 It took some time.
11:17 It took some distractions weathered.
11:20 But over the course of the season, Artest has fit in.
11:24 He's happily taken a backseat on offense
11:26 and done his thing on defense.
11:29 Artest had rising superstar Kevin Durant in hell
11:32 during that first-round defeat of the OKC Thunder.
11:36 He's been solid in this series too,
11:38 and actually shot quite well in the game two victory.
11:41 But right now, all of that stands at risk
11:45 of getting eclipsed forever.
11:48 Ron is still the guy all Lakers fans hated a year ago,
11:52 still the guy a lot of them didn't want on the team,
11:55 still the only person in this rotation without a ring.
11:59 And now he's the guy who may have blown this game.
12:02 Even before this last minute,
12:05 Artest was having a pretty rough outing.
12:08 And then, here, began one of the ugliest minutes
12:11 you'll ever see.
12:13 Minutes ago, Lakers up three,
12:15 plenty of time to find a better shot than this.
12:20 At home watching TV, you could hear the crowd groaning
12:23 even before Artest's awkward no-man's-land jumper
12:26 bricked off back rim.
12:28 - Artest with the shot clock rolling down.
12:31 - But Gasol snagged and protected the rebound,
12:34 then kicked it out for a reset.
12:36 Miraculous.
12:37 Here, we had an even simpler situation.
12:41 One minute left, new 24.
12:44 Obvious opportunity to just stand still
12:47 and burn clock to protect that lead.
12:49 Oh, shit.
12:50 Derek Fisher looked like he'd witnessed an atrocity.
12:55 The crowd sounded like victims of said atrocity.
12:58 - He's going to the back, oh, catch,
12:59 he's going for three, why would he take the shot?
13:03 - And just in case you, the viewer,
13:05 didn't grasp the inanity of that decision,
13:08 here is as harsh a throw to commercial
13:11 as you'll ever hear on a TNT broadcast.
13:14 - And I'm even looking at Phil Jackson saying,
13:16 what are you doing taking that shot?
13:19 - Well, there have been a number of mystifying shots
13:23 throughout the series taken by Ron Artest.
13:26 When we come back, Phoenix ball.
13:28 - Brutal.
13:29 And then the Suns immediately demonstrated
13:32 why Artest shouldn't have shot so quickly,
13:35 exploiting all that extra time
13:37 to find the three points they needed.
13:39 This moment is enough to make you feel sick,
13:43 even if you didn't eat a stinky artichoke.
13:46 If Kobe does his thing and buries this game winner,
13:49 maybe Lakers fans can forget this feeling.
13:52 A wild Phoenix comeback will fall short,
13:54 order will be restored.
13:56 If Kobe misses, anything can happen.
13:59 The Suns could steal this game
14:01 and perhaps this whole series.
14:03 They would just need to corral one rebound
14:05 then finish the job in overtime.
14:07 Jason Richardson, the guy in position to grab that board,
14:10 could become a Phoenix folk hero.
14:13 Ron Artest, the enemy turns new guy,
14:16 could go down in Los Angeles infamy forever.
14:20 Let's just rip off the bandaid.
14:22 Welcome to a moment in history.
14:24 (crowd cheering)
14:27 - Bryant, and comes up short.
14:29 (crowd cheering)
14:32 Ron Artest, who took that bad shot just a moment ago.
14:40 And he's gone, Ron Artest was the game winner for the Lakers.
14:45 (crowd cheering)
14:48 (swooshing)
14:50 [BLANK_AUDIO]