YouTube Gold: Zion Williamson’s Block At Virginia Looked At More Closely

We learned a pretty cool trick over the summer although it’s nothing new and most of you probably know it already. We’re probably the last ones to learn it.

In case you don’t though, here it is: when you’re watching YouTube, if you pause the video you can use the arrow keys (, and .) to go frame by frame. It’s pretty great for sports videos.

Anyway, we mention it because we went back to watch Zion Williamson’s block of De’Andre Hunter.

It was a spectacular play by any measure. People talked about it for days.

But when you slow it down, it’s even more phenomenal.

Williamson is helping to double Travis Guy right on the three point line, on the left side, and he’s the closet to the bench, too.

Guy dumps it down to Jay Huff, who is cutting to the basket. Williamson almost gets his hand on the ball and Huff dumps it to Hunter in the right corner.

What’s freakish is to watch Williamson get there.

When Huff makes the pass, or starts it anyway, Williamson isn’t even in the lane. When the ball gets to Hunter, Williamson is just about at the circle marking the restricted area. He takes one big step out of the lane as Hunter starts to go into his shooting motion.

Then he takes off and by the time he gets to the ball, can you imagine what Hunter is thinking?

This too: look at where he takes off and where he lands. How far did he go? It’s incredible.

But here’s the other thing: if Huff had made a better pass, Hunter would probably have gotten the shot off. You’ll notice he had to go low to get it and then it took longer to get the shot off.