If you sort of squint at this clip of an Adriatic League basketball game’s dramatic finish, you can almost pretend the Croatians (in white) are Duke, the Serbians (in black) are Butler… and Gordon Hayward’s shot goes in.
The uniforms are even the right colors! (Kinda.) You may want to turn down the volume, though, as Croatia/”Duke” is, distractingly for my analogy, clearly the home team. Also, the pre-shot sequence is all wrong; a Krzyzewski-coached team would never be so undisciplined as to forget to play defense with time still on the clock, because they were too busy celebrating their previous shot; and I’m thinking the sequence isn’t exactly going down as one of the Top 5 moments in European sports history. But still. Like I said: you have to squint. And use your imagination. And then sigh, and think about those what ifs.
(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan, of all people. … and a hat tip to Jazz on the title.)
But in the U.S., there would’ve been half a dozen technical fouls called before that shot happened, or at least a whistle to clear the court.
True.
Okay, so squint hard. 🙂