Last night we decided to run the tape back and see if we saw what we thought
we saw with Dunleavy. The thing is, you can look away, or get distracted
and not follow what's happening, and if you don't have a big screen it's tough
to see anyway.
So here's what we saw when we looked more carefully: Mike Dunleavy didn't
have a great game. He didn't have a good game. He had a dominant game. The clock
wasn't running full time so we couldn't tell you exactly when everything
happened, but here's some of what he did, time noted when possible:
- little spin move into the lane and an assist
- steal under SC basket
- 15:17 - draws D, bounce pass to Williams, 3, missed.
- steals pass, bounce pass to Cwell, blocked
- top of the key - catches ball, throws left to Williams for 3
- almost swipes rebound
- breaks up alley-oop pass, coast to coast, misses. Horvath follows, Walton
claims it was a pass. - rebound
- 11:40 - Dunleavy strips Trepagnier
- fakes defender for easy assist
- left, top of the key, touch pass to Cwell
- 7:40 - first basket, a 3
- just missed a block
- gorgeous half court fast break assist
- picks up ball in traffic, starts break, grabbed from behind, not called
- 4:50 - pushing off, foul #2
- below the center circle, pass breaks SC press
- near steal
- near steal
- 13:20 - near steal
- attempted assists, gets the ball back, drives, huge fake, misses
- stunning pass through traffic, assist
- fast break pass to Cwell, misses dunk
- top of the key, touch pass left, shot missed
- 3 pointer after SC cut the lead to 8
- 3 pointer next trip down
- assist on break
- inside pass, blocked
- rebound
- rebound
- rebound
So we count 7 near-miss assists, if you accept Walton's argument that the
Horvath follow was actually a pass. It's hard to get across
how well he played this game and how into the flow he was. Almost every
instinct was correct, and he responded quickly to every situation. Had his
teammates converted all his passes, he would have had 13 assists.
This doesn't count things that can't show out like stepping out to deflect a
potential drive, and then stepping back in time to prevent the pass to his
man. It was a brilliant performance.