A reminder on The Horry Scale: It breaks down a game-winning buzzer-beater (GWBB) in the categories of difficulty, game situation (was the team tied or behind at the time?), importance (playoff game or garden-variety night in November?) and celebration. Then we give it an overall grade on a scale of 1-5 Robert Horrys, named for the patron saint of last-second answered prayers.
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Mike Conley and Marc Gasol are the Memphis Grizzlies’ stars. And the stars made the big plays to turn a loss into a win over the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday night.
With the Grizzlies down one without the ball with 4.7 seconds left, Mike Miller’s inbounds pass was too high for Nikola Jokic and landed in Conley’s hands. He raced down the floor and lost control of the ball. But it hit off the fingers of Denver’s Emmanuel Mudiay before sailing out of bounds under the Grizzlies’ basket.
A video review put 0.7 seconds on the clock and allowed the Grizzlies to draw up a play. Gasol started on the strong-side block and James Ennis circled around him. Ennis then came back and set a screen on Kenneth Faried, leaving Mudiay under the basket and Vince Carter lobbed the inbounds pass over him.
Gasol grabbed the pass and dropped it in the basket as the buzzer sounded.
DIFFICULTY – There’s very little you can do in less than a second, but the Grizzlies pulled it off. Gasol’s shot wasn’t quite from point-blank range, so the most difficult part of the play was the touch needed from about two feet out. The Nuggets could certainly have made things more difficult by having bigger players (like Jokic or Jusuf Nurkic) on the floor, either defending the inbounder (which Danilo Gallinari did) or under the basket.
GAME SITUATION – With Denver holding a one-point lead, there was no overtime fall-back for the Grizzlies.
CELEBRATION – Gasol fell to the floor and was mobbed there by his teammates.
GRADE – Incredible turnaround from not having the ball with less than five seconds left. Good drama. Great execution. THREE HORRYS.
John Schuhmann is a staff writer for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter.
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