Los Angeles Lakers: The five best playoff moments since 2000
By Jason Reed
Los Angeles Lakers best playoff moments since 2000: 3. Derek Fisher’s 0.4-second game-winner, 2004 Western Conference Semifinals
Four-tenths of a second is usually enough for a team with a lead to feel confident that the game is theirs. To put it in comparison, the blink of your eye is one-tenth of a second. If you blinked at the wrong time during this moment, chances are that you missed it.
After going down two games to none, the Lakers fought back against the San Antonio Spurs to even the series at two games apiece, with game five being a huge game for both sides.
It was a contested back and forth battle and Tim Duncan seemingly put the game on ice late in the fourth. He hit a beautiful fadeaway jump shot, off the wrong leg, nonetheless, to give the Spurs the lead with 0.4 seconds on the clock.
The Lakers needed a hail mary. The Spurs smartly swarmed Kobe Bryant on the in-bound pass, forcing Gary Payton to bypass the team’s best shooter for Derek Fisher, who caught the ball moving away from the basket.
Fisher caught, spun and flung all in less than four-tenths of a second. The ball seemingly floated in the air forever. It found its way into the net to give the Lakers a 3-2 series lead before the team ended the series in Game 6.
The stakes are lower than Bryant’s, as it was just the second round, not the NBA Finals, but the complexity and importance of this shot in the series are too important to ignore. Derek Fisher, of all people, hit a 0.4-second game-winner. That is incredible.