With only 43 seconds remaining in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, the Cleveland Cavaliers were clinging to a five-point lead over the Detroit Pistons and had less than a second to inbound the ball and get a shot lifted.
Enter point guard Kyrie Irving, who caught a pass in the corner, and with a defender closing in on him, buried the three-point shot, which proved to be the backbreaker for the Pistons, as the Cavaliers earned a 101-91 win and took a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.
“It was a great play drawn by T-Lue, great just in the time and in the moment,” Irving said. “I believe we had what? A minute to draw up the play? Point-seven, when you have the talent that we have on this basketball team, we don’t necessarily panic in those types of situations.
“Execution is all that matters, and we go out and we set the hardest screens in that moment. That moment is the only thing that matters, and whoever gets the shot, we want him to shoot it confidently and we all believe in it. Luckily, I got the shot off, and it went in.”
With less than a second on the shot clock, Lue elected to have Matthew Dellavedova trigger the pass to Irving. After running off a screen from small forward LeBron James at the top of the key, Irving sprinted to the right corner of the floor and caught the pass while managing to stay in bounds.
Irving then fired up the shot and converted his third three-pointer of the game.
“Delly does a great job of reading situations, and we wanted our best players involved in that with Kyrie and LeBron,” Lue said. “Delly had two reads on that play, and he made a great read and Kyrie made a great shot.”
Following the three-pointer, Irving and James shared a chest bump, and the elder small forward let his emotions go and expressed to his young point guard how excited he was for the shot to go in, which, to center Tristan Thompson, showed how close the team has become in a season full of questions about chemistry.
“We’re family,” Thompson said. “We’re family. Even though we might get on each other, and you guys might think it’s something, it’s love. It’s tough love, and we’re just trying to get each other better, so we were all happy to see Kyrie make that shot. It was fun to watch.
“We’ve got a lot of shot-makers and guys that can make shots in big moments. We felt good and LeBron got to the rim, so if Kyrie did miss the shot, there was a pretty good chance LeBron was going to get that offensive rebound. It was a great play by T-Lue to draw it up, and guys made shots.”
