The Truth about Magic Johnson’s Clutch Baby Hook

In our recent podcast starring Chris Yeh, we brought up the 1980s Lakers. And one of the biggest moments in Magic’s career was when he took down the Celtics, on their home turf, with a shot.

And it turns out Arturo and myself actually view this as a bad play. First, it turns out this was a play designed to get Kareem the ball close to the hoop. So let’s examine the play full out to show why a play designed to get Kareem an easy shot went so wrong.

It starts out fairly calmly, McHale on Magic. And doing decent D, he pushes Magic away from the hoop.

We see Kareem is posting up. He’s guarded by Parish but Parish is clearly eyeing Magic.

Parish takes the bait. Now McHale and Parish are on Magic and Larry’s standing by.

Infected by what future doctors will call “Kobe Syndrome” Magic takes the shot!

Kareem rushes into the fray. The Celtics have Dennis Johnson and Parish ready for the board. If it bounces left, the Lakers have a chance for a quick put back if Kareem can grab it (the game clock is at 2 seconds). If it bounces right, the Celtics probably grab the board and it’s all over.

The ball goes in! Kareem jumps for joy. This is hard to capture in a still frame, but it looks like Dennis Johnson shakes his fists in anger at either the ball or the net.

As a final note, some may want to say Magic may not have been able to make that pass. Sure, keep telling yourself that. Magic could make a great pass falling down and covered!

No seriously, it’s #1 on that list.

-Dre

11 Responses to "The Truth about Magic Johnson’s Clutch Baby Hook"

jgbrett says:

December 15, 2012 at 6:53 am

Dre,

This play has troubled me for years, but thanks to some recent studies, I have a better understanding now. As he drives across the lane, Magic sees Kareem completely uncovered; his court vision was nearly on par with someone like Kobe Bryant. And, like Kobe, he realizes he COULD make the pass–but there are risks involved with passing to an 18-time All-Star wide open under the basket. OK, there’s ONE risk–Kareem could fumble the pass, like he often did. If Magic SHOOTS, on the other hand, he has a reasonable chance of making the shot (at least 1 in 3; as Kobe will tell you, that’s decent odds), and if he misses, Kareem has a very good chance at a tip-in. So, from a scenario in which LA could have failed to get even ONE shot, Kobe-er, Magic found a way to guarantee the Lakers at least TWO shots on ONE possession. Anyone who’s watched an NBA game in the last decade knows the best way to score is to attempt more shots. Obviously, Magic’s understanding of the game was ahead of its time.
Ben Gulker (@brgulker) says:

December 15, 2012 at 12:16 pm

I don’t agree. Magic almost gets the shot blocked by one of the two seven footers between him and the basket. Furthermore, McHale clearly has the angle to Kareem cut off.

Magic was one of the greatest, but he couldn’t make the ball go through people.
benjamin says:

December 15, 2012 at 1:35 pm

Magic was the greatest and if u don’t believe he could make the ball go through matter you need to watch more YouTube
aszzzbrokerman says:

December 16, 2012 at 10:35 am

Can we really question Magic’s decision making. Over the large sample of his career he may have been the best decision maker we’ve ever seen. I’m going to choose to assume that Magic knew exactly what he was doing on this play.
Kamron says:

December 16, 2012 at 12:13 pm

Several things to disagree with.
First, McHale doesn’t “push Magic away from the hoop”- he’s pretty clearly back and to his right, denying the entry to Kareem. By denying the entry (or making it very hard) McHale is forced to let Magic into the lane. The Celtics were *trying* to stop the entry pass, that’s why Magic didn’t throw it- take what the defense gives you, don’t force what they’re trying to take away, that’s just good basketball.
Second, once Magic gets into the lane, he just doesn’t have a good angle. McHale is trailing slightly so there’s no behind-the-back. There’s no daylight between McHale and Parrish. Magic might’ve whipped a pass over the top, but the defenders have their (long) arms up while Kareem’s are still low (and one of the beautiful thing about Magic’s passing is that he rarely threw hard-to-handle passes, one that make the passer look good and the receiver look bad). Best option pass-wise might be a floating lob to Kareem after Parrish commits- but that’s pretty late, Parrish does IMO a great job of timing his help and leaving Magic a pretty narrow window to make that work.
And if Magic throws the entry before Parrish commits (say, around still #2), all he’s done is enter to Kareem in the post with barely enough time for a skyhook AND dragged McHale into a doubleteam cutting off the lane (and the skyhook).
Third, I think Kareem will get that miss most of the time. Kareem has better position than DJ and much better than Parrish, and is hell of bigger than DJ. If it goes entirely right then maybe DJ gets it.

Finally, “keep telling yourself that” isn’t much of an argument. When you resort to a rhetorical gag like that to preemptively dismiss the best argument against your position, I think you already know it’s in trouble
Jerbil says:

December 16, 2012 at 4:19 pm

Why are the seats empty in the first 3 stills???
todd says:

December 16, 2012 at 4:20 pm

Letting a player drive into the lane with their strong hand is a major mistake.
jfindling says:

December 16, 2012 at 7:35 pm

I agree with Kamron. Kareem looks to have by far the best chance at the rebound, thanks to Magic drawing all the attention. And, if the shot had missed, we’d have a textbook example of a proto-”Kobe assist.”
Chris Yeh says:

December 16, 2012 at 10:41 pm

After viewing the video a couple of times, I think @brgulker is correct. Trying to lob the ball over two 7-footers with their freakishly long arms raised is hard; Magic’s choices were to lob or shoot the shot, which was effectively a lob anyways, since Kareem was rolling to the basket.

It was the right decision–if he made the shot, great. If he missed it, McHale and Parish would be even further from the basket and unable to recover to block out Kareem.
Sam says:

December 17, 2012 at 10:28 am

As aszzzbrokerman said, Magic may have been the best decision maker of all time, why question him here, on a successful play? Just saying, “He’s Magic, he coulda made that pass!” is ridiculous, as if he’s not capable of committing a turnover, or is capable of making any pass he wants. It’s a shot he started to master and clearly felt comfortable taking in a pressure situation. So many things could go wrong if he passes! Two big men between Magic and Kareem, and not to mention DJ was right there too. A bounce pass and DJ could have slid in and knocked it away fro Kareem.

One thing missing in this analysis is that their was so little time left in the game. Magic didn’t have a great angle to see the game clock, and i’m sure his internal clock was saying “TIME RUNNINNG OUT!! SHOOT IT!!” There were only 5 seconds left when he had the ball at the 3point line. We have the benefit of being able to the game clock as he dribbles and shoots, he does not.

And one more bit of analysis missing here. I think the only way Magic could have made a high percentage pass was to do a jump stop, pump fake, and pass to Kareem. Magic was almost exclusively a 1 foot jumper, and rarely did jump stops. He committed to doing a 1 foot running jump while he was still 3 feet outside the paint. At that point, he pretty much committed himself to shooting.
Arturo Galletti says:

December 20, 2012 at 9:10 am

I will more clearly state my original point. The Celtics put Magic in a low percentage situation. They played good D and got him to take a contested shot.

Stupid thing went in anyways.

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