The Moment

CHARLOTTE (Steve Goldberg's Wheel World) - What’s the greatest thing you’ve ever seen in a basketball game?

If you’re reading this on FIBA.com, and you know who you are, most likely you’re a fan of the game. There are myriad reasons why any of us enjoy it. Some appreciate the individual expression it allows while others cherish the teamwork it engenders.

With networks dedicated to it and thousands of games on TV all the time, why do we go to basketball games in person? No matter how big the screen nor however awesomely rockin’ your surround sound audio system is, your television can’t deliver the excitement of being there live, at the arena, in the crowd.

For me, perhaps for you as well, it’s the anticipation of the moment…that point in time when something spectacular will happen, a “Did you just see that!” event which will live as long as we can draw enough breath to tell the story one more time.

We go to the games for the same reason people fish, the chance of catching a big one, and then trying to do it again. I’ve been fortunate to see a good many wow moments over the years but if I had to pick one, I can tell you exactly what the best thing I’ve ever seen in person was.

I was in Sydney, Australia, covering the 2000 Paralympic Games. 122 countries, 3,881 athletes, 1.2 million fans and more than 300 world and Paralympic records set. It was the tenth and next to last day of the games and the much-anticipated basketball medal matches.

It hadn’t played out the way the home crowd would have wanted. The Aussie women had taken silver behind the dominant Canadians but their men’s team, the Rollers, surprise gold medalists four years prior in Atlanta, had crashed out in the Quarter-Finals to the USA, who they had upset in the 1996 semis, finishing fifth.

It was the evening of October 28th, the Bronze Medal Game between the national wheelchair basketball teams of the USA and Great Britain. Six days earlier, the Brits and Yanks had gone to overtime in preliminary round play with the former colonists winning 74-65.

Bronze medal matches are always bittersweet. The Americans had fought back from a double-digit deficit to pull within three points of the Netherlands and the ball in hand as their Semi-Final game wound down. An offensive rebound off a missed three-pointer let Jeff Glasbrenner cut that to one but time would run out on the American dream.

The Brits had their own disappointment. After taking silver in Atlanta, they too had hoped for another shot at gold. Ask any athlete who’s worked so hard for this - a bronze medal is still better than none.

The Sydney Superdome was packed with 16,400 raucous fans, a sellout just as the Olympic medal games had been a few weeks earlier. Perhaps no other country has sports fans like Australia – they love and respect their sport and give all competitors their due - and the Olympic and Paralympic games would do just fine if that was their permanent home.

As the game drew to a close, the bronze medal was still up for grabs. With a scant 24 seconds left and the game tied at 54, the Brits had the ball and were pushing up the court, looking for the last shot. The American defense lapsed and gave up an open layup with just over six seconds to play. The ball glanced slightly off the backboard and rolled across that flat piece of metal that separates the hoop.

How long is a second? Sometimes it can feel like a lifetime.

It seemed to hang there forever before it rolled off the left side of the rim into the sure hands of the USA’s Will Waller. Caught between two Brits, he had to use all of his height and width and elbows to protect the ball.

The clock read 5.7 seconds; 5.7 seconds to go 90 feet. 54-54. It looked like another overtime game.

Twisting between the two defenders, Waller released the ball to point guard Eric Barber who was waiting at the top of the lane. Barber looked upcourt and saw Paul Schulte, the youngest member of the American squad. With a tall defender in the way, he lobbed a pass as the seconds continued to fall off the clock by chunks. Surely it would run out too soon.

4.7… 4.6… 4.5…

With two strong pushes, Schulte was moving at speed and gathered the pass from Barber about six feet in from the left sideline as the clock ticked down to 2.5 seconds. His hands instinctively went into shooting position as his momentum carried him across halfcourt.

There were two teammates closer to the hoop but no time to pass. Great Britain’s ace Jon Pollock, at the top of the key, realized this as well and pushed across to cut Schulte off. His chair still rolling forward as if going downhill, Schulte tucked his elbow in and started to pull the ball up. A collision, and a foul that would put the Americans’ best shooter on the line, looked imminent.

1.3… 1.2…

Pollock wouldn’t get there in time and veered to avoid the foul. Now, Paul Schulte is long recognized as one of the purest shooters in the wheelchair game but here he was 40 feet away from the basket, 35 feet, 30 feet and closing.

As Pollock charged forward, wishing desperately for his arms to grow longer, Schulte launched the ball towards the basket with 1.1 on the clock. In my mind, the shot was released from at least 40 feet but video of the moment shows that it was more like 25.

Still, he was rolling forward and sitting down for God’s sake.

Reaching its apogee, it began to fall and, as the clock expired, glanced off the back of the rim into the net.

Schulte says it’s the kind of moment you dream about as a kid, shooting in the driveway or the gym when no one else is there. 

This time though, more than 16,000 people were there and they suddenly remembered to breathe again and leapt to their feet screaming, realizing they had just witnessed the greatest thing they might ever see on a basketball court. The Gold Medal Game was relegated to an afterthought.

The American bench rushed the court, meeting their teammates in a dog pile of metal and flesh as shocked British players looked around in despair and disbelief.

Up in the press tribune, I too was screaming, enough to lose my voice for three days. No cheering in the press box, they say. It’s not professional. Yeah, sure, the hell with that.

This was the greatest thing I had ever seen.  What’s yours?

Steve Goldberg

FIBA

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