Basketball is a team game. Individual stars are helpful, but in the end, the team that plays together is the team that wins. No one player can hog the ball; no one player should do all the shooting. Every player, every coach and every fan knows that. But once in a while, the team needs a super effort by an individual. In a National Basketball Association playoff game between Boston and Syracuse, Boston’s Bob Cousy made one of the most spectacular one-man shows ever seen.
The Boston Celtics were losing by two points with only two seconds left to play. Then Bob Cousy fouled. Calmly, he sent both free throws through the hoop to tie the game and send it into overtime.
Once again Syracuse took the lead. With seconds left and Syracuse ahead, Cousy was fouled. He made the shot good. The game went into a second overtime.
Doggedly, Syracuse went ahead again. With only a few ticks left on the clock, Cousy took a pass, drove in and scored his lay-up to tie the game, making a third overtime necessary.
By then the crowd was going crazy with excitement. Boston’s publicity director, Howard McHugh, fainted. But in the third overtime Syracuse opened a commanding lead and led by five points with just 13 seconds to go. The game seemed over. But Cousy drove to the basket again, made his shot good and drew a foul. He sank the free throw to cut the margin to two points. With only 5 seconds remaining, the Celtics got the ball back and threw it to Cousy. Near midcourt, he let fly a long one-hander just as the buzzer sounded. The ball went in. Tie score. Fourth overtime.
It only took two and a half minutes for Syracuse to build up another five-point lead. However, Cousy went on the warpath again. He hit a shot from outside, then drove in for a lay-up, and made a foul shot. Boston took the lead and held it to the end. Final score, 111-105, Boston.
In that game Bob Cousy scored a total of 50 points. He made 25 of them in regulation time and 25 more in the four overtime periods. And he made 30 out of 32 foul shots. Even more important, he had scored his points at the right time. Four times he scored in the final seconds to keep the game going. Then he helped his team pull away.
Basketball may be a team game, but most teams would not be sorry to have an individual performer like Bob Cousy.
From Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.
Kinda like what Kawahi Leonard did in last year’s playoff run for the LeBron bit Raps.*
*Meanwhile I was a jinx, went out with friends to watch a Raps playoff game several times and they lost every one I saw (first Orlando game, two 76ers games when Embid destroyed the Raps and VanVleet was cold as ice, 1st two games of the Bucks series and game 5 of the finals.)