J-Speaks: What If Robert Horry's Three-Pointer Fell Short?

Fans of professional sports and those that cover it tend to look back at significant moments and ask the question what if? What if a player was not traded? What if a player had not been drafted to a certain team? What if a team fired or did not hire a certain head coach? Or a specific player did not get injured, how would their career had gone? These are the man questions that many NBA fans in particular have asked over the years. With the help of NBATV’s original two-part program “What If?” we will look back at some moments to ask the question, “What If” the outcome of a past play, draft selection, draft day trade or coaching decision were different? Our first look back will feature the shot made by the guy dubbed “Big Shot Bog” in Game 4 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals that changed the direction for a team trying to dethrone their arch rival. 

That afternoon, Los Angeles Lakers forward Robert Horry, affectionately called “Big Shot Bob” made the game-winning three-pointer from the top of the circle at the buzzer that tied the series at 2-2. The Lakers would ultimately win the series in seven games and would go on to sweep the then Eastern Conference champion New Jersey Nets 4-0 to win their third consecutive Larry O’Brien trophy. 

What if though Horry shot did not go in and the Kings took a commanding 3-1 lead? 

With 11.8 seconds left in the game and trailing 99-97 at home, coming back from a deficit as high as 24 points, the main objective that now NBATV/NBA on TNT studio analyst and former Kings’ All-Star forward Chris Webber said, “Keep Shaq [Shaquille O’Neal] off the boards and try to take this home. Because if you are up 3-1, we’re going back to the cowbells. It’s over.”

Horry, now a studio television analyst for the Lakers on Spectrum Sportsnet said of the lead up to the winning triple was that he hoped that future Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant was able to beat one of the best perimeter defenders in the league at that time Doug Christie off the dribble and get to the hole. 

If that could not happen, Horry also said that the next option was going to O’Neal to hit the offensive glass if there was a miss. 

Bryant did get the ball of the inbound and drove on Kings’ defensive ace Doug Christie to his right. The shot the perennial All-Star attempted over Kings’ center Vlade Divac missed, but as the ball was coming off the rim, O’Neal got the offensive board. His put back was also short. Divac managed to get a hand on the ball and knock it out to the top of the key, but Horry was right there to get the loose ball and shot the three right over the outstretched hand of Webber, which went right through the net at the horn giving the Lakers the 100-99 win. 

The sound of then NBA on NBC play-by-play commentator Marv Albert, now with the NBA on TNT for many years was as the shot was going was, “Horry for the win?” As the shot went in, Albert whenever a player made a big time shot or a game-winner signified the moment with his signature, “YES!”

“Oh, I knew it was good,” Horry, who won seven NBA titles with the Houston Rockets, Lakers and San Antonio Spurs in his career said. “It’s almost like one of those ones where you’re playing good. You’re feeling good and you’re feeling hot, and you let it go it’s going to be a splish splash.”

“When Horry’s shot went in, I kind of didn’t believed it but I looked at the crowd. I looked at everybody else,” O’Neal said he did after Horry’s shot went in. “Everybody else was going crazy.” 

Webber said he remembers stretching as hard as he could to block Horry’s three-point attempt. 

It was another signature moment of the career of Horry of making game-winning shots in the closing seconds. 

That shot also symbolized what O’Neal has said many times of how if it was not for the likes of Horry, Fisher, Brian Shaw, and Rick Fox making the plays they made on both ends of the floor in his time as Laker, he would probably have just one title instead of the four he earned in his Hall of Fame career. 

The one question that Bryant always wanted to ask Divac is why did he slap that loose ball out to the three-point line where Horry picked up and hit the game-winning triple? 

“Why would you slap it to a point where the ball literally bouncing to the three-point line? If you’re going to slap it, slap it up and out,” Bryant said earlier this season during a one-on-one conversation during a NBATV original program, “Players Monthly” with him and O’Neal,

Divac during the postgame when asked about the play said, “Those kind of situations, you don’t think about who has the ball. I mean, I don’t think he tried to beat the clock.” 

Divac added said, “Everybody can make that shot…It’s just a lucky shot. That’s all.”

Christie said that Divac was trying to do what now Lakers President of Basketball Operations, five-time NBA champion and Hall of Famer Earvin “Magic” Johnson did in Game 6 of the 1991 Conference Finals where he rebounded a Terry Porter game-winning two-point attempt from inside the three-point line and he threw to the other end of the court as the horn sounded to send the Lakers to The Finals. 

Webber said that he wished Divac either grabbed the ball rather than tip it out, but said, “So many chains of events had to happen for to as spectacular as it was and that’s why you love sports. It’s unfair to everybody and it’s fair to all.” 

That said, what if Horry’s shot was off and the Kings had taken a 3-1 series lead with Games 5 and 7 back then Arco Arena? 

Horry said the team had enough confidence in themselves and enough dislike for the Kings they could have captured both games in their building. 

They managed to steal the home court advantage winning Game 1 of the West Finals, and with their win in Game 7 became the first team since the 1982 Philadelphia 76ers to win a road Game 7 in the Conference Finals. 

“If they had gone up 3-1, I don’t think we would have thought we were out of the series, but it would have definitely given them going home in Game 5 a huge edge and boost in confidence,” Fox, who played for the Lakers from 1997-04 said. 

Christie had mentioned of a conversation Bryant had with his sharp shooting teammate in Peja Stojakovic that if the Kings had won Game 4, they would have won two titles because of the confidence they would have gained from slaying their biggest conference rival and winning against a team in the Nets they had dominated during the regular season. 

Unfortunately for the Kings, that 2002 Conference Finals marked their last legitimate chance to compete for a title. 

While they would win 59, 55 and 50 games over the next three seasons respectably, the Kings have not been back to the Conference Finals since 2002 and after making the playoffs for eight straight seasons from 1999-2006 under head coach Rick Adelman, they have missed the postseason for 12 straight years, currently the longest streak in “The Association.” 

While the Lakers have fallen on tough times missing the playoffs for five consecutive seasons, their longest postseason drought in franchise history, the Lakers would win back-to-back titles with Bryant as the top player in 2009 and 2010 beating the Orlando Magic in five games and the arch rival Boston Celtics in seven games respectably. 

Robert Horry’s game-winning triple in Game 4 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals kept the Lakers title run alive and ended any dynasty hopes for Kings. 

This moment was the greatest example of a champion getting a break and taking advantage of it, while the challenger was on the cusp of breaking through and had their moment stolen from them with one shot. 

“The thing about Horry is he can knock those shots down, but how does the ball find him,” Webber ask? “It’s like the ball knew, ‘Go to his hands if you want to win.” 

“It was one of those bittersweet moments in sports. But it was an exciting game and as a sports fan it was a great game.”

Information and quotations are courtesy of 5/12/18 NBATV original hosted by Chris Miles, “What If?” “2006-07 Official NBA Guide,” Sporting News;  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Los_Angeles_Lakers_seasons; and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sacramento_Kings_seasons.