The Boston Celtics edged past the Philadelphia 76ers Thursday night, thanks to a perfectly executed alley-oop from Rajon Rondo to Kevin Garnett. In the recap, it reads like this: "Kevin Garnett's alley-oop layup with 1.4 seconds remaining lifted the Boston Celtics to a 102-101 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers at the Wells Fargo Center."
Which doesn't do it justice, obviously. Thankfully, it's 2010 and we have moving images:
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Bryan Gibberman in Friday's SB Nation's Scores & More details the mistake made by the Sixers:
If Rondo is running a pick and roll 30 feet away from the basket, don't switch. On the game winning basket by the Celtics, Kevin Garnett set a pick for Rondo (it was a moving screen, but we all know that isn't getting called) and Holliday and Young switched. This leaves KG in a mismatch with Holliday and Rondo throws a perfect alley-oop which KG lays in for the go ahead bucket. On this play I'm honestly not sure if the fault goes on Holliday or Young. Either Holliday stayed with KG because he saw Young jump out or did a terrible job getting under KG's screen forcing Young to jump out on Rondo so he did not have an easy path to the basket.