Chapter 256: JR's Famous Moment
The ball traced a near perfect arc through the air, then slid off the rim and out.
The whole crowd at Pepsi Center let out one long breath of relief. At last, this was the first shot Chen Yan had missed in the final quarter.
Marcus Camby grabbed the defensive rebound with both hands, and George Karl immediately burned the Nuggets last timeout.
"Man, that is tough," Kenny Smith said on TNT. "Chen had a real chance to close it right there."
Charles Barkley watched the replay and snorted. "Look at that slow motion. Melo got him on the wrist, man. I am not saying they are gonna call it late like this, but that is contact."
Anthony had indeed swiped across Chen Yan's shooting wrist as he lunged, but at that point of a playoff game, small hits like that were rarely whistled. Chen did not complain. He knew this was how the league was in crunch time.
The final timeout for Denver felt long for the fans and very short for the players and coaches who still had to make one last play.
When the buzzer sounded, both teams walked back onto the floor.
The score was still 111 to 109. The Suns were up by two.
George Karl had his players line up near the free throw line.
Every Suns defender locked in on Allen Iverson, Carmelo Anthony, and JR Smith. Those were the three guys most likely to take the last shot.
The whistle blew. All three Nuggets wings broke at once.
Then, right on cue, Kenyon Martin suddenly spun and cut hard toward the rim.
Camby read it perfectly. He lofted a soft pass toward the basket, a smart little lob between the two big men. For a second it looked like a perfect play.
But before Martin could grab it cleanly, Boris Diaw exploded from behind. He sprang off the floor like a big cat, crashing into Martin in midair.
Kenyon's body was a tank. Even after losing his balance, he still tried to power the ball through the rim and end it with a dunk.
But the collision shook his grip loose.
Bang.
The ball slammed off the iron and rocketed into the second tier seats.
Mike D Antoni and the Suns bench all exhaled at the same time. That could have been the season swinging right there.
Kenyon slapped his hands together in frustration. He knew if he had finished that dunk, the game was basically done.
But there are no ifs in the box score.
Now he had to live with something even worse.
Kenyon Martin, a big man who shot about fifty eight percent from the line all season, had to walk to the stripe with the game on his shoulders.
The referee bounced the ball to him. The entire arena fell almost silent. Even the home fans were scared their own noise might mess up their guy.
On the big screen, the camera zoomed in on his face. Sweat rolled from his forehead down to his chin. His stance at the line looked awkward and stiff.
If you had written the words I am not good at free throws across his forehead, it would not have looked out of place.
He took a breath and lifted the ball.
Unlike real shooters, who can usually tell the moment it leaves their hand, Kenyon's eyes stayed locked on the rim all the way. He was waiting to see where it bounced.
Bang.
The ball smacked off the front iron, kissed the backboard, and then dropped through.
He got the first one.
111 to 110.
The crowd roared for a brief second, then went quiet all over again. Everyone knew the second shot mattered even more.
"Kenyon, put a little more on it," Iverson told him softly as he walked past.
Judging by the first free throw, that advice made sense. The problem was simple. Kenyon did not really know how to control his strength under pressure.
He took his second shot. The ball spun, hit the rim hard, and caromed out.
"Second one rims out. Kenyon just cannot handle all that pressure," Kenny said.
But before he could finish his thought, the mood flipped.
The Suns did not secure the rebound.
Camby shoved into the bodies of Amar e Stoudemire and Diaw, creating space. At the same time, JR Smith flashed in from the side and jumped to the second spot.
He snatched the ball cleanly right under the basket.
"A huge offensive rebound," Barkley groaned. "You cannot give that up if you are Phoenix."
At that moment, Suns fans everywhere felt their stomachs drop.
JR was standing almost right under the rim. No one was around him. All he had to do was go straight back up and lay it in.
Instead, he took off like he was holding a live grenade.
He dribbled out of the paint and sprinted all the way back behind the three point line.
The whole arena froze for a heartbeat, not sure what they were seeing.
But JR was not done.
Once he got past the top of the arc, he slowed down, the ball still in his hands.
There were only three seconds left on the clock.
At the top of the floor, Carmelo Anthony spread his arms wide, yelling for the ball.
Denver still had a chance to win the game. One clean pass, one clean shot.
JR looked right at Melo, eyes a little blank, and stayed where he was, dribbling in place.
The crowd started to scream.
"Pass it, JR!"
"Give him the ball!"
"Shoot something!"
Everyone knew the clock was bleeding away.
With one point one seconds left, JR finally seemed to realize something was wrong.
In a rush, he turned to the referee and signaled for a timeout.
The whistle blew a moment later, but it was not the sound the Nuggets wanted.
The officials hit Denver with a technical foul.
They were out of timeouts.
On the Nuggets sideline, players and coaches all threw their hands in the air at the same time.
Nobody knew what JR had been thinking.
JR himself did not know either.
On the Suns side, players were already slapping hands and bumping shoulders.
Everyone understood it right away. Denver's last real chance to win had just gone up in smoke.
Because of the rules, the Suns kept the ball after the technical.
Steve Nash walked to the free throw line and calmly sank the technical shot.
Then Phoenix got the ball out of bounds.
The inbounds pass went straight to Chen Yan. He caught it, turned, and lofted the ball high into the air, making sure there was no way for the Nuggets to foul or get another possession.
The last seconds ran out as the ball sailed and dropped.
112 to 110.
On the road, on the Denver plateau, the Suns had pulled off a wild win.
For the Nuggets, it was not just a loss in one game. It was the end of the whole series.
No team in league history had ever climbed back from a 0 to 3 hole. A team that had the toughness to come back from that would not fall into that hole in the first place.
JR Smith's meltdown in the final seconds instantly became the punchline for fans everywhere.
"JR, I gave you a chance and you did not use it."
"JR is the real undercover agent."
"Everybody else is racing the clock to win. JR is racing the clock to lose. I am done."
"Does he think this is some pickup three on three game? Grabbing the rebound and running out to the three point line like that?"
"Did he read the score backwards?"
"If a one point deficit counts as a one point lead, JR is a genius."
"The Nuggets players are saints for not jumping him in the locker room."
"JR is our blessing and our curse."
"JR basically said, I am done pretending to be the hero. I really just want to go home and fish."
On the floor, the Suns only gave themselves a short celebration on the sideline. There were hugs, a few yells, and quick smiles.
Then, remembering they were still in Denver, they pulled it back and jogged toward the tunnel.
This was Nuggets territory. There would be time to celebrate back in Phoenix.
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