Rudy Gobert hit essentially the most unlikely shot of his life in historic Timberwolves win

Rudy Gobert is, to place it kindly, not precisely recognized for his offensive ability. The four-time Defensive Participant of the 12 months is a continuing goal of derision on-line and on tv for his clumsiness with the ball and incapacity to create his personal shot, to the purpose that within the first half of Sport 7 of the 2024 Western Convention Semifinals between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets, “Get Rudy” (as in get him out of the sport) was trending on Twitter.

Even Gobert himself is conscious of this model, as jumpers for him are so uncommon that he as soon as in contrast hitting a 3 to dropping his virginity.

However as a lot as Naz Reid’s fourth-quarter shotmaking and Anthony Edwards’ superstardom, Gobert’s protection and offensive rebounding have been an enormous a part of the Timberwolves’ second-half comeback to beat the defending champs on Sunday night time. Nevertheless, maybe no bucket was extra backbreaking for Denver than Gobert’s jumper with slightly below eight minutes remaining.

Dealing with a shot clock that was about to run out after catching a desperation inbounds to keep away from a five-second violation, Gobert drove baseline after which spun again the opposite strategy to hit a shot that it’s in all probability not an overstatement to name each the largest and most expert bucket he’s ever hit in his profession when contemplating the circumstances:

From Wolves backup Luka Garza reacting as if he simply witnessed God, to Nikola Jokic practically grabbing his head in disbelief earlier than composing himself, the clip is simply unbelievable.

That jumper was such a uncommon show of contact from the massive Frenchman that even the NBA’s official account virtually gave the impression to be in shock when tweeting out the spotlight:

That bucket solely put the Wolves up by 4 factors, however within the second it felt just like the momentum shifting irreversibly in direction of Minnesota, and like it could be backbreaking for Denver. I imply, in the event you already blew a 20-point lead in a Sport 7 after which a man who has a profession capturing share — and this isn’t a joke — of 19.5% from 3-10 ft, and a couple of.9% from 10-16 ft hits that? It might be onerous to not really feel like the sport was over. Even Anthony Edwards admitted as a lot:

The final word comeback for a 98-90 win was actually historic, not only for Minnesota, however for all the NBA:

Nuggets head coach Mike Malone took this information with the extent of grace and sportsmanship you’d count on from one of many sport’s most pleasant-seeming folks:

However ultimately, whereas Edwards’ explosion of playmaking, scoring and passing-lane leaping will in the end get the lion’s share of the credit score for that turnaround — particularly after Gobert fouled out on a (smooth) contact foul on Jokic was a couple of minutes remaining — we’d be remiss if we didn’t give some credit score to The French Rejection; who for one transient, superb second, confirmed he may, deep in storage, have a bag in spite of everything.