The Beauty of One Ugly Shot

It was basic bad basketball.

It would be generous to call the shot that dethroned the NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers a turn-around jumper.

No eye contact with the rim, no squaring up to the basket, no firm grip on the ball. No swish.

But despite its lack of elegance, Ralph Sampson's shot (read, "prayer") with no time left gave the Houston Rockets a 116-114 victory over the Lakers. After bouncing around the rim, that shot also propelled the Rockets into the NBA finals, making them the League's new Western power.

Rodney McRay threw an ordinary inbounds pass to Sampson with one second showing on the clock. There's still the controversy as to whether "00:01" means that there is between zero and one second, or one and two seconds of play remaining--but that's another story.

Sampson took the inbounds, and delicately but swiftly redirected the ball towards the hoop.

Kareem Abdul Jabbar was guarding Sampson at the time, but offered relatively little pressure. Another year of running up and down the court and anchoring the Laker offense had left Jabbar--39 years old--only able to stand behind Sampson with his hands raised high, simply trying to avoid the foul.

As Sampson let his "shot" go, Jabbar just turned around, watched the ball do its dance on the rim, and prayed.

"It was a miracle," Lakers Coach Pat Riley said. "He didn't even see the basket. You just can't beat fate."

Fate had permitted Sampson to be present to perform miracles. The Rockets' star recruit of three years ago has been overshadowed by Houston's other "twin tower," Akeem Olajuwon, for most of the playoffs and much of the season. Down the stretch, Houston Coach Bill Fitch usually went to Olajuwon for the crucial baskets.

But Fate prevailed.

First, Sampson managed simply to stay in the game. Early in the fourth period, he was almost ejected for fighting with Kurt Rambis, the Lakers' effective, though unskilled, forward.

Olajuwon succeeded in holding back the swinging Sampson before the 7-ft., 4-in. center could land a solid right hook.

Fate interceded again several minutes later when Olajuwon tried to start a skirmish of his own. With 5:12 remaining in the game, Olajuwon went after Mitch Kupchak, another Laker known more for his elbowing then his fine shooting touch.

This time around, a referee stepped forward, wrestling the angry Rocket to the ground. Olajuwon was ejected from the game, leaving the Rockets down by four points, and without the services of their key player.

But even after Houston tied the game, the Lakers tried to take the final shot and win with a last-second hoop. Laker Byron Scott missed a long jumper and Houston--which had been out-rebounded nearly two to one--retrieved the ball and called time.

With Olajuwon out of the game, the logical choice was Sampson on some alley-oop sort of play.

But Sampson was guarded by Jabbar from behind. The only other choice was Sampson on an ugly, off-balance sort of play.

"There was a man guarding him him from behind and a man guarding him in front and he only had one second to get the shot off, so it wasn't real pretty," Fitch said.

For that breathless moment, some of basketball's greatest players watched the ball bounce around the rim and it didn't matter how the ball had gotten to the basket--only whether or not it would go in.

And, when the clock stopped, Fate had sided with bad basketball.