Earl Watson has been around the world (and aye aye ah) in his NBA career. Across seven seasons he has played for five different teams. He has been everywhere from the end of the bench to the starting point guard and back. Needless to say, he has probably picked up some tricks of the trade on his journey.
But his cat-like quickness and reaction time during this play at the end of the first half against the Bulls was particularly impressive. With the shot clock and game clock winding down, Watson tries to initiate a play with a Troy Murphy screen and roll at the top of the key. Murphy, as you will see below, completely hangs Watson out to dry with (first) a weak attempt at a pick on Tyrus Thomas, followed by a borderline illegal second attempt leaving Watson one-on-one with the lengthy Thomas.
After Thomas deflects his pass, Watson reacts to the expiring clock by chasing the ball down and hurling up a damn near perfect impromptu heave. The Bulls announcers on the video will incorrectly claim that the shot should not count because of a backcourt violation, but it’s probably because they missed Thomas tipping the ball.
Then again, the way the Bulls season has been going, you would need to be able to black out certain parts of games just to be able to come to work everyday. Anywho, the shot is awesome — vid below.
