When Kyrie Irving made the +10 basket with 3:57 leftit seemed that now there victory was definitively in the hands of the Dallas Mavericks on the Cleveland Cavaliers field. But as an old NBA slogan claimed, this is the league.”where amazing happens“. What happened in the last 4 minutes in fact has few explanations, although it certainly has a name: that of Max Strus. The Cavs winger actually achieved it four triples in the space of a minute and a half to bring his team back to -1 with 2:35 to play, setting up a point-to-point finale in which Donovan Mitchell with two triples had given a three-point lead to his team with 30 seconds left. From then on, however, an Irving basket brought the Mavs back to -1, then a turnover on Evan Mobley’s throw left the door open to the Texans to overtake, actually operated when Luka Doncic — after risking losing the ball himself — he managed to find PJ Washington under the basket with his 14th assist of the night to accompany a 45-point performance. With 2.9 seconds to play, no timeouts and Donovan Mitchell off the court for defensive reasons, Strus took responsibility for the last shot — who first took the throw and passed it to Mobley, who put it back into his hand while running in his own half of the pitch. With no more seconds to use, the former Miami player stopped from 59 feet (equal to just under 18 meters) and has threw a prayer towards the basket overcoming the opposition of Doncic, who contested the shot but without going too close to avoid committing a foul. A precaution that turned out to be useless, because Strus’ shot only found the back of the retina, exploding the Cleveland arenalater being swamped by his incredulous teammates on the pitch.
Strus, second longest buzzer beater in NBA history
Strus’s is the second longest buzzer beater in NBA historypositioning themselves only a little more than half a meter away (two feet to be precise) from the 61 feet from which Devonte’ Graham had released the buzzer beater with which he had beaten the Oklahoma City Thunder on December 15, 2021 in a New Orleans Pelicans jersey. “I do not know what happened” Strus said in his postgame on-court interview. “Donovan was out, so someone else had to step up. I was lucky“. However, the comments of his teammates were much more laudatory: “Anything can happen when you have someone like Max Strus on your side” said Jarrett Allen, while Donovan Mitchell pointed out that “the shot looked good right from the startand it could only be him who scored it given what he had done in the fourth period. One can only dream of a shot like that“. “Max never gives uphe continues to make play after play on both ends of the floor” said coach JB Bickerstaff instead. “Today he was the protagonist, but we are fortunate that with this group every single night there is one who can step up to the level and making plays like that.” Strus’ buzzer beater saves the Cavs from what would have been their third defeat in four games after the break for All-Star Weekend, which Cleveland had entered by winning 18 of its previous 20 games — surging to a 38-19 record to remain in second place in the East.