By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
June 20, 2005
arbrin HILLS, Mich. - Rasheed Wallace decided not
to guard Robert Horry, which in the final seconds of
overtime in a critical NBA Finals game is about as wise
as giving your kid a loaded gun to play with.
'Sheed happens and all, but what the heck did you
think the outcome would be?
"I saw Rasheed bite and I said, 'Ohhh, let me stay
out here,' " Horry said.
The rest is part of the legacy of Robert Horry,
the NBA Finals legend who has crafted a most unusual
career. He has spent 13 seasons producing often average
play only to hit some of the most remarkable, clutch
shots of all time.
Big Shot Bob they've been calling him. He'd prefer
Big Shot Rob. But after this, a fourth quarter and
overtime for the ages, perhaps the best Finals stretch
since Michael Jordan in 1992, Big Game Rob might be a
better name.
Thanks to Horry's five three-pointers (including
one with 5.8 seconds left in overtime that gave the
Spurs a 96-95 victory) and 21 after-halftime points, the
San Antonio Spurs are one game away from winning a third
NBA title. They take a 3-2 series lead back to Texas for
Game 6 on Tuesday.
Horry now is one game from his sixth championship
with three different teams (the others being the Houston
Rockets and Los Angeles Lakers).
And the Detroit Pistons? They're left wondering
what the heck just happened.
"Up two with nine seconds left?" mused Larry
Brown, who was baffled that Wallace would - as the
player put it, "decided to double Tim Duncan down low" -
and leave Horry open for no apparent reason.
"It's Bobby Horry," Tim Duncan said. "He does
whatever he wants to do. He's Big Shot Bob."
"You can make it Rob, R-O-B," Horry said. "B-O-B,
that's not me."
Whatever the heck Horry's name is, he has always
been a bit of a mystery.
How does a 34-year-old bench player with a career
scoring average of 7.5 points per game, with a pinched
nerve in his left shoulder and a no-show, zero-point
first half utterly dominate a game of this magnitude?
How does a 6-foot-10 forward with a career 34.3
three-point shooting percentage get known as one of the
most clutch gunners in league history?
"I'll tell you the deal with Rob," said Duncan,
who went for 26 points and 19 rebounds but missed six
critical free throws in the fourth quarter. "Rob just
hangs out the entire game. He does it all season long.
He doesn't do anything. He doesn't feel like playing.
"But then you put him in the fourth quarter in a
big game and he's like, 'OK, it's time to play now.' And
he just turns it on. As funny as that seems, it's how it
looks. It's how it is."
Laughed Horry, "Tim's a jerk, man."
That is Horry, though. He never takes anything too
seriously, never goes too long without a smile breaking
out on his face. For a guy with a knack for winning, he
doesn't put a misplaced value on it.
Go figure, but one of sports' greatest winners
isn't a winning-isn't-everything-it's-the-only-thing
kind of guy.
"That's my philosophy," Horry said. "You've got to
have a smile on your face and enjoy the game because
there [are] a lot more serious things going on in this
world than playing the game of basketball."
Maybe that is why Horry keeps going after so many
teams give up on him.
In the 2003 playoffs he shot a miserable 2-for-38
from three-point range for the Lakers and looked tired
and done. But Spurs coach Gregg Popovich figured if you
rest him during the regular season (conceding he has
limited value as an everyday player) he might still have
legs to take over when it counts.
"That's who he is," Popovich said. "That's one of
the things he does."
Horry in the fourth quarter and overtime did just
about everything. He drained threes when he was guarded.
He drained them when he was open. He hit one from way
out.
"When I made it, I thought, 'Oh, I'm ready now,' "
he said.
He had one play in overtime where, with confidence
surging through his veins, he put the ball on the deck,
slashed to the hole and threw down an outstretched dunk
while being fouled, damn near ripping his left arm out
of its socket in the process.
"When I was going through the air I was like,
'Please let me get there, please let me get there,' "
Horry said. "Maybe a younger Rob could have got there
with ease, but I wanted to get to the rack."
Then he laughed. He laughed at himself. He laughed
at the joy of knowing that on Father's Day both his
father and his son were in the stands. He laughed from
the jubilation of knowing he is so close to winning it
all again. He laughed at the absurdity of it all.
Big Shot Bob. Big Shot Rob.
He isn't that good. Until he's great.
Dan Wetzel is Yahoo! Sports' national columnist.
Send him a question or comment for potential use in a
future column or webcast.
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