Joe Johnson banks in buzzer-beating game-winning 3 to beat Nuggets
A couple of years back, Kevin Garnett introduced us to “Joe Jesus,” his preferred nickname for then-Brooklyn Nets teammate Joe Johnson, whom Garnett said “might not be there when you call on him, but he’s there when you need him.” On Monday night in Brooklyn, in the midst of a season to forget, Johnson showed the Barclays Center crowd how a resurrection really feels.
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Things did not look good for the Nets, who had built a 16-point lead over the visiting Denver Nuggets midway through the second quarter before watching Michael Malone’s club whittle the deficit down over the next two periods, erase it with 5:34 left in the fourth, and take a two-point lead on a wild runner by Nuggets power forward Kenneth Faried with 1.3 seconds remaining:
But with the Nets down 104-102 and scarcely one tick remaining on the clock, Johnson — who’s been scorching the nets (no pun intended) in relative obscurity since the calendar flipped to 2016 after a dismal start to the season — pulled an all-time answer out of his bag of shot-making tricks to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat:
As Brooklyn guard Markel Brown prepared to trigger the inbounds, the Nets tried to confuse the Denver defense with screens and motion. As Nuggets defenders worked to track Shane Larkin curling to the far corner, Thaddeus Young moving from the right block to the left corner, and Brook Lopez trying to position himself deep in the paint, Johnson found himself with a step on Denver forward Danilo Gallinari. (After the game, Johnson would tell YES Network sideline reporter Sarah Kustok that the play was intended to get Lopez a touch down low and attempt to send it into overtime, but that he knew he’d come scot free off the sprint to the top of the key.)
Brown found Johnson before Gallinari could recover, and the 34-year-old took one dribble before raising up off his left foot and flinging a 27-foot prayer … that softly banked off the window and splashed through the net with no time left on the clock, stunning the Nuggets and handing the Nets a 105-104 win.
“I was able to take a dribble and I don’t even know how it went in,” Johnson said after the game, according to Michael Scott of The Associated Press.
Here’s what Johnson’s saving grace looked like from courtside and, crucially, in slow-motion:
And here, even more crucially, is what Johnson’s final-second heroics did to Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov, who is reportedly in town to interview prospective general managers after firing Billy King, and who got treated to a show:
look at him pic.twitter.com/lHCSmE6VD0
— James Herbert (@outsidethenba) February 9, 2016
Even in the midst of a dire season, basketball games can be fun!
Johnson finished with 12 points on 5-for-10 shooting with eight assists, three rebounds, two steals and one absolutely vicious crossover of Nuggets center Jusuf Nurkic in 29 1/2 minutes of work:
After the loss, the Bosnian bully — still working his way back from left knee surgery last May — licked his wounds and had some fun with being the brunt of the joke on Twitter:
Don’t worry guys, my ankles are okay. Just need a little ice 😜😜. Good play by Jonson.
— Jusuf Nurkić (@nurkic23) February 9, 2016
As good as that was, it still comes in second on the evening … which, as it happens, is where everybody else slots in behind Johnson when it comes to buzzer-beating game-winners over the last decade:
Most game-winning buzzer-beaters in the last 10 seasons:
Joe Johnson: 7
Monta Ellis: 4
Andre Iguodala: 4https://t.co/hmDOdA37HX— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) February 9, 2016
With Johnson acting as the closer capping big nights for Brown (19 points, four rebounds, two assists in 24 minutes off the bench) and Young (20 points, seven rebounds, three blocks, two assists), the Nets kept the Nuggets from earning a sweep of their trip to New York after Sunday’s Derek Fisher-era-finishing win over the New York Knicks, and sent their fans home happy.
“You know, the play before, Faried made a tough shot and I was just thinking, man, just our luck,” Johnson said after the game, according to the AP. “He made that tough shot, but we got some luck back.”
Maybe it was luck, or maybe it was divine intervention. Either way, it ended with the Nets saved, thanks to the seven-time All-Star shot-maker.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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