Did Raymond Felton Shoot Too Early?
With their game against the Oklahoma City Thunder tied at 98 with 29.1 seconds left, Russell Westbrook found himself at the free throw line, shooting the second of two free throws. That is a 5.1 second differential between the shot clock and the game clock. If the Knicks would have played their cards right, they could have left very little time for Thunder’s game tying/game winning attempt. It didn’t work out that way however, and the Thunder were left with 6.5 seconds left to try and win the game (which Durant did with a cold-blooded three). Now, the question we need to ask is did Raymond Felton take his jumper too early, giving the Thunder time to win the game?
Me personally, I am leaning towards yes. Felton takes the shot with 5 seconds left on the shot clock (9.6 seconds left in the game), and the reason I think he could have waited even longer is that it’s a simple pull up jumper. This is the kind of shot that Felton could have gotten whenever, so waiting another few seconds doesn’t really affect the quality of the shot/possession.
If he waits until the end of the shot clock, there would be around 1 second left for the Thunder, versus the 6.5 seconds that were actually left on the clock. In a situation like this, overtime needs to be the worst case scenario. While the Knicks weren’t able to run the game clock all of the way down (because the shot clock was still on), they could have taken the clock so far down that the Thunder would have been forced to run a catch and shoot set out of a timeout.
Instead, there was 6.5 seconds left on the clock, enough time for Durant to start off the basketball, get it, take a few dribbles, and then knock down a three. But like I said, this is just my opinion, what do you guys think?
