Throughout the six NBA Championships he and his Chicago Bulls teams won, Michael Jordan had countless iconic moments.
One in particular came in the 1992 NBA Finals. As his Bulls took on the Portland Trail Blazers, Jordan went on a customary scoring surge in Game One, but in an unconventional way.
Despite being just a 27.0% three-point shooter that season in an era that did not involve nearly as many of them as basketball does now, Jordan hit an unprecedented six three-pointers in the first half during a 57-23 scoring run for the Bulls, on his way to a record 35-point half. He capped off the sixth three with a glance courtside to Magic Johnson, the NBA legend who happened to be commentating on the game.
While Jordan was always going to show up for a Finals game, no one – neither Michael nor Magic – anticipated it would go down like that. And in a famous moment, Jordan looked at Johnson and shrugged.
One Of The All-Time Great Comebacks
Roll on 33 years, however. And Aaron Nesmith of the Indiana Pacers just surpassed that.
In his team’s captivating come-from-behind win in Game One of their Eastern Conference Finals series against the New York Knicks, Nesmith went on a scoring tear for the ages. He finished the game with 30 points in 39 minutes, shooting 9-13 from the field and a blistering 8-9 from three-point range as his Pacers pulled out the 138-135 overtime victory.
It was not just an efficient night, though, but a game-changing one.
In a five minute span in the fourth quarter, Nesmith scored 20 of his points, including six of his three-pointers. When he checked back in with exactly five minutes to go, the Pacers were trailing 113-98. When he finished, they were tied. And from there, Pacers All-Star Tyrese Haliburton took over and closed one of the best comebacks in the history of the NBA Finals – with a needle thrown in to boot.
With that burst, Nesmith entered the record books for the most points scored in a five-minute span. He added two free throws with 12 seconds to go alongside the threes for a 20-point barrage, the most in a five minute span in the second half of any playoff game in nearly 20 years.
Not Even Mike Could Do A Nesmith
Nesmith’s six three-pointers in the fourth quarter of a playoff game also marked an NBA first. Only five times in history has a player made six three-pointers in a single quarter of a playoff game. The others – Michael Porter Jr, Devin Booker, Bojan Bogdanovic, Stephen Curry and Damian Lillard – all had their barrages in the first half of their games. Nesmith therefore becomes the first player to do it in the fourth quarter, and also in a second half.
Those parameters, though, do not do justice to the enormity of what Nesmith did and when he did it. Even after he had started his scoring spree, the Pacers were still down by 14 with two and a half minutes to go, a lead that should be insurmountable with proper game management. Yet Nesmith was unflinching, and just kept, on, shooting. And in this span, he did not miss a single shot.
Jordan’s six three-points were iconic because they came in a single half. Nesmith’s, meanwhile, came in five minutes of a single quarter, and the final five minutes of the final quarter at that.
Aaron Nesmith, therefore, just out-Jordanned Michael Jordan. And that is surely worthy of a shrug.
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