One of the simplest rules of the NBA is that if you can dunk the ball, you dunk it. It’s super high percentage. It removes a lot of the room for error. It looks pretty awesome. But sometimes, rarely, it loses you a basketball game.
Dwade (pronounced ‘dweighed’) last night, with his steal>fast running>dunk move nearly won the Miami Heats a game singlehandedly. Well, two-handedly, based on the dunk, but that’s not how the metaphor works. But by dunking, he left 0.06 seconds on the clock, which as we now know, is roughly equivalent to one (1) Rajon Rondo alley-oop.
Allow me to hypothesize. Had Dwade laid the ball in, glass or not, wouldn’t 0.06 seconds have run off the clock? Wouldn’t the minuscule difference between throwing the ball downwards and slightly flipping it upwards have ran down the clock just enough? Probably.
Please be aware that I’m aware that this is the dumbest second guess of all-time. How about of all-time? Dwade had to get the shot off quickly, to actually beat the buzzer. He had to make sure he made it. He probably thought he’d ended the game. Going the lay-in route invites a chance of missing the shot, or maybe not getting it off in time. There’s about ten things wrong with laying it in there, which is why you always dunk it.
Or I guess, almost always because if that dunk happens to be a layup, there’s no overtime. C’est la vie.
