June 03, 2016
Now that YouTube exists, finding great plays from the past is easy. If you ever get bored at work and want to relive Brian Westbrook’s punt return at the Meadowlands or Roy Halladay’s playoff no-hitter, it’s not difficult.
For my personal criteria, timing (playoffs) matters but the play itself has to stick out on its own. Brad Lidge striking out Eric Hinske with his slider won the city a championship, but the pitch itself wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Here’s what I came up with from the last 16 years:
Last night wasn’t the first time that Tyronn Lue lost Game 1 of the NBA Finals. The play was part of an incredible sequence that began with the Lakers up a point with 1:30 left in overtime: Terrible driving shot by Lue, A.I. transition three on the other end, terrible Rick Fox pass, A.I. steps over Lue, incredible Kobe fadeaway over Raja Bell, and then a 16-foot runner by Eric Snow to ice the game. It was the Lakers’ only loss of that postseason.
On the famous move, Marv Albert and Doug Collins nailed the call.
Truth be told, it was kind of hard to come up with three plays for Sixers. This happened in a regular season game, but it was one of the more memorable endings of A.I.’s career.
This wasn’t a good game (79-78, yuck), and it wasn’t a well-played series. The Sixers would’ve gotten bounced in five games if Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah were healthy. But it was a nice moment for Andre Iguodala to step up in a big moment, drive hard to the basket, and sink two clutch free throws.
Every time Matt Stairs stepped to the plate, he was trying to hit a home run. The future Phillies announcer became a folk hero for this majestic blast. I remember going to a World Series game that year, and Stairs received one of the loudest ovations during pregame introductions.
Somehow, this play is still underrated. Chase Utley shows the incredible presence of mind to fake to first base and still throw the ball home. Carlos Ruiz made a great tag, and the Phillies were saved by an incredibly smart, incredibly creative defensive play on the biggest stage.
The hit that inspired the incredible Goodfellas video.
Freddie Mitchell definitely got the first down, but this was one of the most generous spots you’ll ever see. The Packers played that soft Cover-2 and Donovan McNabb threw a laser down the middle of the field to “Fred-Ex.” Brett Favre threw an insanely bad interception in overtime that Brian Dawkins caught like punt, which was fun too.
It’s pretty crazy that two of the Eagles’ best plays of the past decade or so are passes to Freddie Mitchell, but here we are.
Poor Matt Dodge, Tom Coughlin made a beeline for him. Jason Avant made an incredible block on this play, and DeSean Jackson used the initial bobble to his advantage. I always thought Joe Buck and Troy Aikman did a nice job with the call.
The Flyers have a ton of great moments to pick from, so whittling down the list to only three plays was difficult. Keith Primeau’s goal in five overtimes didn’t make the cut, for instance. The same goes for Jeremy Roenick’s OT clincher against the Leafs.
Boosh robbing Patrik Elias on his back, though? Yeah, that will make the cut.
I’m still not sure what Jaroslav Halak was thinking, but Mike Richards will take it.
Pittsburgh is back in the Stanley Cup Finals, but back in 2012, Claude Giroux was not letting the Flyers lose. He opened Game 6 of one of an extremely memorable series
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
