0.9 seconds on the clock. Heading into time-out, Monty Williams digs like never before through his long-distance collection. Videos that change formats, VHS, DVD, digital files. The pace, versatility, and energy may have changed, but basketball has a maxim that doesn’t change over the years: It’s made for the smart.
Jae Crowder, now, strokes the ball on the baseline. It would seem that there is no time for anything, the series will travel to Los Angeles tied to one game per side. But not. Devin Booker places a perfect blind curtain over Ivica Zubac, Crowder finds the right millimeter angle, and DeAndre Ayton flips it over two-handed for the Phoenix Suns Arena to explode in a scream.
Moment: No goal-tending from interference above Ayton’s cylinder? The answer is no. That play is fine, it is within the regulations and has a close background with the Suns also as protagonists.
Rule 11 – Section 1. For a violation to occur, a “live” ball must enter the cylinder area AFTER it has been touched by any player on the court. Otherwise, this action must be considered an ordinary throw-in and any player can take possession of the ball without penalty.
In short, end of the controversy: there is no goal-tending in a serve, either lateral or from the bottom of the court.
A JOURNEY IN TIME: FROM CHANDLER TO AYTON
Jae Crowder inbounds it to Deandre Ayton above the rim for the @Suns win in #PhantomCam! #ThatsGame #NBAPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/WVNc9xnvio
– NBA (@NBA) June 23, 2021
Williams’ genius, however, has a history. And one of them returns to light less than five years apart. Canadian coach Jay Triano, an eminence in last-second decisions, found this regulation advantage for his team to defeat the Memphis Grizzlies with a traced play that had Tyson Chandler as a hero, with Dragan Bender as a passer. The only difference is that it was a side exit with 0.6 tenths to go instead of 0.9 like what happened in Game 2 of the Conference Finals between the Suns and Clippers.
Let’s review that play:
The history of this particular shot is fantastic. Remember Triano a Azcentral.com in an article published on December 27, 2017, that being coach of the Toronto Raptors (he was on the tour from 2008 to 2011), one night he was watching a game in which there were 0.2 tenths of a second left to play, with favorable possession for the team that could draw or win the match . And then came the question as a trigger that resulted in this famous play.
“With two tenths left, you can’t grab the ball and shoot. You have to deflect it,” Triano said at the time. “So I was thinking, ‘How do you deflect it?’ We (the Raptors coaching staff) were thinking of a flying pass where you can tap the ball. When some umpires came to a clinic I asked them, ‘Can that play be goal-tending?’ They replied, ‘We will contact you about that,’ but they didn’t. So I kept asking during the Summer League and every moment I could, ‘Can you do goal-tending like this?’ And finally they said, ‘No, a shot that doesn’t count can’t be offensive interference.’
Shout out to Coach Jay Triano! After practice 1 day he was kickin random NBA facts to me and was like “did you know theres no goaltending on an out of bounds play?” I was like really ?? Nooo he said look it up .. 3 weeks later we found or selves in that situation
– Tyson Chandler (@tysonchandler) June 23, 2021
What Triano did is take advantage of a little-known rule in the NBA. He had already successfully designed this move at the 2015 Pan American Games as Canada’s coach with the giant Sim Bhullar as his target. But in American basketball, it was the first time. With the victory against the Grizzlies that famous night in 2017, he exhibited his field work to the world.
Ecstatic, that night Chandler declared at the close of the game: “I’m pretty sure after this (the success of the play) it will become something important. The teams are going to take note and figure out how to defend it. It is something that Triano ends up in. to be a pioneer “
Almost five years later, it is clear that someone forgot to check the playbook.
THE FIRST BACKGROUND: BARKLEY IN 1993
Game Ball goes to Jay Triano !!!!! He drew up that play weeks ago in practice for a time just like this !!! He told us the rules on it and how know one even knows about it !!! Coach won us this game !!!
– Jared Dudley (@ JaredDudley619) December 27, 2017
28 years ago, in regular series, the Suns who played NBA Finals against the Chicago Bulls of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and company, won a game against the Portland Trail Blazers that had an outcome that serves to understand the regulatory factor.
Charles Barkley, now a controversial television analyst, confused everyone after a luxurious conceptual decision that came from the brain of coach Paul Westphal.
Let’s see the play:
On a side outing, with just 0.5 tenths of a second left to play, Westphal asked Oliver Miller to throw the ball against the backboard. Portland players were confused thinking that the clock started ticking from that moment, but it was not. Barkley took advantage of a curtain at the height of the free kick, took the rebound, spun and threw the ball from the ground to win the game. The prelude to what Triano would improve more than two decades later.
BASKETBALL, SPORTS OF STRATEGY, TACTICS AND EXECUTION
The evolution of sport is always sustained and improvement in all sections is constant. However, great coaches take things from the past to reshape the present. To explain again that this is a game of dexterity, dynamism, but it is much more a game of intelligence. Of seconds and details. Being a coach is being a student of the weaknesses, strengths and opportunities that present themselves. Of the problems and the advantages. And also, why not, the regulation.
Williams, who in these playoffs was received as an elite coach, drew a clear play that ended up being vital for the victory.
We are what we were to explain what we are. And to anticipate, of course, what we will be. Williams, Triano and Westphal embrace on an imaginary bridge that cuts across time. Ayton’s scream is Chandler’s ecstasy and Barkley’s disbelief.
Basketball is wonderful wherever you look at it. And we will never, but never cease to amaze us.