Alamodome: Take akid, any kid with a hoop stuck in the ground or hanging from a garage, standing on the edge of the driveway counting off the seconds, doing a game play-by play in his head, “It’s the NBA finals, 10 seconds left, down by two, he gets the ball deep in the corner, he dribbles, he spins, he shoots … it’s impossible, he can’t make it … it’s in … it’s in!”
On Memorial Day in the Alamodome, the San Antonio Spurs won the kind of playoff game — a game as surely lost as the old mission a few blocks away was lost a century and a half ago — that great teams, but not soft San Antonio, win. It’s impossible to overstate how terribly the Spurs were outplayed in the first half of game two of the conference finals on Monday. Portland came out with such a tornadic fury, the Spurs were forced to burn a time out with only four minutes gone. The Spurs had exactly zero rebounds in the first seven minutes. Stunned stupid by the youthful Blazers’ ferocity, the Spurs took nothing but outside shots — missing most — while Portland picked off uncontested rebounds and stuffed the ball, at will, down the craw of the league’s best defense. When a Blazer shot missed, they got the offensive rebound. If the next shot missed, they got the reboundagain; resistance was nonexistent. A democratic combination of Spur guards shot one of 16 for the half. A dozen turnovers, most by Duncan and Robinson, didn’t help much either. For 24 minutes the Spurs were out-hustled, out-shot, out-rebounded, and out-about anything else you can think of. The second quarter netted the Spurs a total of three field goals. A half-time shooting percentage of 34.4% and a 14-point deficit — it seemed like much more — was the ominous result.
Then it got bad. The third quarter commenced with a missed Robinson dunk, followed by a botched Avery Johnson lay-up. An 18-point Portland lead, the largest of the night, foretold only disaster in South Texas. It was officially time that all past Spur teams would quit. But with no foreshadowing atall, the comeback began: An Elliott three. AJ finally hits a jumper. A Blazer miss, the Spurs are running, 35,000 desperate fans shrieking. Elliott feeds the streaking Admiral for a dunk. Now Portland begins to unravel — they miss again, leading to an Elie lay-up. Portland calls time-out. A Robinson block. An Elliott steal; an Elie three; AJ again.Elliott swishes another trey. In four minutes, the Spurs went from 18 down to three down, 54-51. The often maligned Alamodome seethed with insane hysteria.
So ended a 17-2 run. The Spurs, for the first time, were in the game. Or were they? Portland’s veteran poise and beautiful balance stopped the bleeding. Stoudamire, Sabonis, and Jimmy Jackson put San Antonio back in its thorny coffin. When the horn sounded, San Antonio was down by nine.
As the fourth-quarter clock too quickly melted away, it appeared certain the Spurs had dug themselves too deep a hole. They were unable to sustain the momentum of the big third quarter run. They’d fall back by nine, make a short run to close the gap, only to be met by a Jackson three or a Wallace fade-away. Portland’s will and tenacity belie their youth. The Trailblazers would have to be beaten. They were giving nothing away.
The San Antonio Spurs have been the victim of many — too many — last-second playoff guttings. The Spur franchise, on the other hand, never comes back andnever ever makes that last-second shot which will always define a championship season. Still down by eight with 1:58 to play, another nice season was about to crumble. Sure the series would be 1-1. But don’t kid yourself. It would’ve been over … history.
There were three views of Sean Elliott’s (a star-crossed and long overdue hero if ever there was one) ridiculous three-pointer. Coach Greg Popovich: “He shot it off his toes, falling down. If his heel had come down he’d have been out of bounds, it wouldn’t have counted.” “Nobody in our huddle thought we were going to lose,” said the Blazers’ Damon Stoudamire, “when Elliott took that off-balance three … we just don’t have an answer for a shot like that.” And finally the view from the driveway, “It’s a corner shot,” said Elliott, “and that’s my shot.”
It was, truly, an insane shot. A crazy shot. An unnecessary shot. Down by only two with nine seconds left … a stupid shot. The ball was meant to go inside to Robinson for a high percentage two. Send the game to overtime. But Elliott, to the abject horror of 35,000 stunned fans and his teammates, shot it anyway. He was falling down, almost out of bounds, with Rasheed Wallace, all seven feet of him, in his face.
But Elliott alone was calm; he’d done this before … many times. All alone, in countless gyms and playgrounds, to countless imaginary opponents. There were still nine seconds left when the ball went silently through the net, plenty of time for a Blazer miracle of their own.
But not this year. The Great and Cruel Basketball God had no more awful endings in store for this team. Not tonight anyway. Enough was enough.
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This article appears in June 4 • 1999 and June 4 • 1999 (Cover).