The NBA fast break died Thursday night at Ball Arena. It was 74.
Long regarded as one of basketball’s most beloved plays, it died quietly, if not unremarkably, in the final moments of a Nuggets’ game played before zero fans and broadcast to a limited audience due to an ongoing dispute between billionaires.
Shrieks could be heard emanating from the Grading the Week offices in the wake of the its tragic passing — moans so loud Ms. Grading the Week was stirred from her evening slumber.
Fast break basketball — F
Some might say the fast break was a victim of the times, done in by math and an over-emphasis on 3-pointers.
This, of course, would be ignoring the fact that even the Nuggets coach who presided over its death was himself pleading for his charges to revive the simple play following Denver’s 112-110 loss to Washington.
“We had a layup,” a somber Michael Malone lamented late Thursday night.
Indeed, the Nuggets were surging up court, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. at the front of a four-on-one break with precious seconds remaining in a two-point game when the fateful moment arrived.
Murray, inexplicably, pulled up at the 3-point line as Bradley Beal scrambled to get back into defensive position while Porter, Facundo Campazzo and Monte Morris all spotted up behind the arc on the other side of the court.
Four Nuggets. One Wizards defender. And not a single Denver player cut toward the hoop for what likely would’ve been an easy game-tying layup or dunk.
The end result: A flailing desperation 3-point attempt from Campazzo that clanked off the rim as the buzzer sounded and Murray held his face in his hands — perhaps attempting to shield his eyes from the hoops homicide that just took place.
“Four-on-one, somebody should go to the rim,” Murray said afterwards.
This angle.. pic.twitter.com/VBCpMqTcEZ
— Jamal Murray (@BeMore27) February 26, 2021
The players mostly said the right things amid the devastation, although MPJ couldn’t help but defend his actions as officials drew a chalk outline around the Ball Arena court.
“Another thing in basketball is the first person out in transition, run to the corner,” the 22-year-old forward told The Post’s Mike Singer, clearly struggling to come to terms with what he’d just done. “And that’s what we teach. You usually run to the corner. … Usually, when you’re running in transition, you’re thinking, ‘Man, get to that corner for that three.’”
Sometimes the straightest line is the hardest one to take. And with nary a defender to keep him from sprinting to the rim for a sure-fire dunk, Porter did what so many of his contemporaries now do under similar circumstances: He ignored the easy opportunity and instead flared out for a corner 3.
It’s the shot all quants adore. Mathematically, it’s one of the best shots in the NBA. But even the eggheads will tell you it’s less desirable than an uncontested dunk, especially in a two-point game with seconds to go.
The Denver County coroner later declared the Nuggets’ misguided modern basketball instinct the cause of death.
Meanwhile, two time zones away in Atlanta, members of TNT’s “Inside the NBA” panel struggled to process what their eyes had just seen. Once progenitors of the fast break during its heyday in 1980s and early ’90s, all they could do is shake their heads in disgust.
“They all were wrong,” former Rockets point guard Kenny Smith said, “all four of them.”
“They all were dumber than rocks,” Charles Barkley added, closing out the segment.
Services will be held at local gyms throughout the land once the pandemic subsides. And old men sporting bedraggled headbands, knee braces and a slight limp will declare the outcome an abomination — then promptly rush out onto the court to indiscriminately launch 3s for the next 90 minutes.
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February 27, 2021 at 07:45PM
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Grading the Week: Pour one out for the NBA fast break, which died Thursday inside Ball Arena - The Denver Post
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