THE TEN-POINT SHOOTOUT: Packet 1 (OPERATION BARBOSAROSSA)
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Note: for reasons of quizbowl orthography, either team locations or names are acceptable in all cases except if specified otherwise. Players’ last names or nicknames are acceptable unless specified otherwise. For specific games and seasons, the year is required unless the requirement is overtly waived. For playoff series, answering with team names only (i.e., Warriors – Cavaliers) will be accepted only in cases when the teams met in only one playoff series.
Description Acceptable
1. In response to this game, Jerry Vinokurov wrote on his Facebook wall “This is bullshit. Basketball is bullshit. I want Carlisle’s head on a pike.” Commentator Kevin McHale repeatedly used the phrase “rim-run” to refer to two easy baskets scored by one team’s power forward in this game, and the key part of this game started with a rolled-in three-pointer at the end of the third quarter which made it 67-49 in favor of the visiting team. The winning team in this game would lose the series in six despite 32 points from Gerald Wallace in the clincher. The comeback in this game was nearly ruined by a leak-out three from Jason Terry that hit off back rim as time expired, and its central player tied the game at 82 with a four-point play and scored the winning basket on a banked-in pull-up shot over Shawn Marion. For ten points, identify this playoff game featuring a 19-point fourth-quarter comeback, the last noteworthy game for a Blazers player who would retire early due to cartilage problems with his knees.
ANSWER: The “Brandon Roy” Game (or 2011 Western Conference First Round, Dallas at Portland, Game 4 – answers along the lines of “The playoff game vs. Dallas where Brandon Roy went off” are acceptable without precise year)
2. An urban legend that this player originated the phrase “my bad” has been discounted by internet sleuths. While playing for the 76ers in 1993, this player drained six second-half threes in a losing effort that tied his career high for points, 18. Drafted 31st in 1985, he made the playoffs his first three years as a Bullet, and tallied four points and nine blocks in his first playoff game in 1986. He only played 19 games over his final three seasons, partially due to knee injury and partially because his physique made him unplayable in the post. One web highlight had him blocking four straight layup attempts by the Orlando Magic in 1992. For 10 Points, identify this Sudanese center whose blocks per minute remains the highest in NBA history.
ANSWER: Manute Bol
3. A point guard with this last name played for the San Diego Rockets and Celtics while sporting the nickname “Hambone”. Another player with this last name was nicknamed “The Wizard” and served as a three-point specialist for Sacramento, Portland, and Houston. One player with this last name was a bespectacled three-time All-Star for the Nets and is 16th all-time in games played. One player with this name went unsigned for an entire season due to weight issues, and picked a name to distinguish himself from a similar long-term center for the Cavs – those were “Hot Rod” and “Hot Plate”. One player with this last name was “the Junkyard Dog”, and another was the shooting guard who, with Dennis Johnson, led Seattle to its lone championship. For 10 Points, identify this last name of Walt, Buck, and Gus, currently represented in the league by players named Mo, Lou, Marvin, and Deron.
ANSWER: Williams
4. This person endorsed Sketchers Shape-Ups in an awkward commercial with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 2010. One impersonation of this player had him recommending changing the term “diabetes” to “live-a-betes” and touring his home state ofLouisiana while always describing himself in the 3rd person; those segments were from the Man Show and were performed by Jimmy Kimmel. This player starred in a match at WCW’s Bash at the Beach in 1998, teaming up with Diamond Dallas Page vs. a team of Hulk Hogan and Dennis Rodman. In one reported conversation, this player, while wearing a cowboy getup, told a teammate’s wife that he was “hunting little Mexican girls”. For 10 points, name this two-time MVP, a relatively humorless power forward for the Utah Jazz.
ANSWER: Karl Malone (full name necessary: the NBA’s full of Malones)
5. This team set an NBA record by having 27 different players see game action in 1996-7. Erick Strickland played his first four years for this team, which in 1997 traded a popular small forward for the incomparable Sasha Danilovic, as well as a short deal for Kurt Thomas. Long after a lineup called the “Three Js”, in 2000-1 this team posted its first winning record in 12 years, in a year where they acquired Calvin Booth and Juwan Howard, as well as roster gimmick Wang Zhizhi. They made the second round in 2002 after trading for Raef Lafrentz and Nick Van Exel, with an all-offense strategy until their coach was replaced by Avery Johnson in 2005. Replacing Shawn Bradley, Erick Dampier served as their center during a season where they suffered a disappointing Finals loss. For 10 Points, name this Southwest Division team that experienced a mid-2000s reign of glory under players like Josh Howard, Michael Finley, Steve Nash, and Dirk Nowitzki.
ANSWER: The DallasMavericks
Year and Team Required
6. Before this season, this team ditched coach Joe Mullaney and acquired third-stringers Flynn Robinson and Leroy Ellis. Only Phoenix managed to beat them more than once during the season, going 2-4 vs. them. In the playoffs they swept the Bulls in the opening round and then trounced a Kareem-led Milwaukee squad that had beaten them the year before. Their bench included Happy Hairston and a young Pat Riley, and they were led in scoring by sixth-year guard Gail Goodrich. Their star center shot 65% for the year and slapped up a 24-29-8 with 8 blocks while playing with a broken hand in Game 5 of the Finals. Former star Elgin Baylor retired 9 games into the season. For 10 Points, identify this NBA champion that went 69-13 in the regular season, who notched the league’s longest-ever winning streak at 33 and defeated the Knicks for the championship behind Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West.
ANSWER: The1971- 1972Los AngelesLakers
7. This team’s classic logo was known as the “Pac-Man”; in recent years their arena has featured a virtuoso trap organist known as Sir Foster who commonly performs versions of pop and rap songs mid-game. During the Grantland years, writer Rembert Browne unceasingly championed this team in his articles. One owner of this team was pushed to sell it after a leaked email of his argued that black fans were scaring away white fans from their games; that man is Bruce Levenson. This team briefly employed a center known as the Macedonian Muckraker, Pero Antic, and its former GM Danny Ferry drew flak for claiming Luol Deng had “a little African in him”. The current employer of former Spurs assistant Mike Budenholzer, For 10 Points, name this Southeast Division team who play their home games at Phillips Arena.
ANSWER: The AtlantaHawks
8. In one clip, this announcer lambasted guard John Long for punching Rick Carlisle in a “yellow” manner, laying into Pacers coach Jack Ramsay as well. He often referred to players dribbling as “fiddling and diddling” and then “daddling”, and called the end of games “nervous time”. He used of the phrase “high above courtside” to describe his perch over the action, and gave two opposing players the nicknames “McFilthy and McNasty”. When Gerald Henderson made a game-saving steal in Game 2 of the 1984 Finals, he afterwards claimed that he could hear this man’s voice describing his actions. For years he referred to Magic Johnson as “Crybaby”, and instituted a tradition of rampant homerism that would continue with his successor Tommy Heinsohn. For 10 Points, name this raspy-voiced radio announcer who covered Celtics games for forty years.
ANSWER: Johnny Most
Description Acceptable
9.One team in this game missed 15 of 35 free throws, and had earlier taken an unexpected 2-0 lead in the series; they would wind up dropping the last four. This game featured 17 big points from reserve Anthony Mason, and the player most remembered for this game previously spent his first four years with the Clippers and would retire due to injury in 1997. On the previous play, Stacey King’s shot attempt had been rejected, and one team’s only three-point make was converted by B.J. Armstrong, to give his team a two-point lead with 76 seconds remaining. After its most famous play, the opposing team played keep-away to run out the clock: that play included one block each by Horace Grant and Michael Jordan, and two by Scottie Pippen. Patrick Ewing dropped 33 and 9 in, for 10 points, what contest in the Eastern Finals where a Knicks roleplayer was stuffed on multiple chances at the game-winning shot?
ANSWER: The “Charles Smith Game” (or ChicagoBulls – New YorkKnicks, 1993 Eastern Conference Finals Game 5)
10.Lance Stephenson achieved this feat versus the Heat in Game 1 of the 2014 Eastern Conference Finals, while David Lee accomplished this in a December 2006 game against the Bobcats at the end of regulation, winning the game. A player for the Knicks did this via game-winning jump shot against the Bulls in 1990, leading to the institution of a rule named for him, the Trent Tucker Rule, making the play he pulled off impossible. Most recently, Trevor Booker of the Utah Jazz accomplished this versus the Thunder via a backwards two-handed “patty-cake” maneuver, although he started with double the lowest allowable amount. For 10 Points, identify this basketball feat, done by scoring with the minimum possible time displayed on the shot-clock timer.
ANSWER: Scoring (or equivalent) with .1 on the clock (prompt on “tip-in” until the end of the first sentence) (technically, the Trent Tucker rule states that you need .3 seconds to take a jump shot, so answers along the lines of “scoring with .2 or .3 on the clock” should also be accepted before the giveaway)
11.Before taking his most famous basketball role, this man had served as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee as well as Postmaster General. Under his guidance the league settled an antitrust suit brought by Oscar Robertson, ending the option clause and granting teams the “right of first refusal”. In his job he was preceded by Walter Kennedy, and before him Maurice Podoloff. He negotiated an agreement which resulted in the nonexistence of the Kentucky Colonels and the Virginia Squires, the ABA-NBA merger of 1976. His reign saw the introduction of the salary cap as well as the three-point line, as well as the NBA’s first appearance on cable. For 10 Points, name this third NBA commissioner, the predecessor of David Stern and for whom the championship trophy is currently named.
ANSWER: Larry O’Brien
12. This player shares with Wilt Chamberlain the record for most free throws made in a game, with 28. Nicknamed “The Teacher”, he served a short stint as coach of the Nuggets in 2010 due to George Karl’s illness. Drafted 6th overall by the Buffalo Braves in 1976, after a Rookie of the Year season he was traded to the Indiana Pacers, then to the Lakers and Jazz in short order. He led the league twice in scoring, in 1981 and 1984, and was notable for drawing absurd numbers of foul shots, leading to imbalanced box scores which Bob Ryan named for this player. He led his team in scoring in the 1988 Finals at 21 a game versus the Lakers but would be traded to Dallas the following year for Mark Aguirre. For 10 Points, name this six-time All-Star, an undersized post player who provided scoring for Utah and for the pre-championship Detroit Pistons.
ANSWER: Adrian Dantley
13. The player involved in this March 1996 action scored a career-high 51 points versus the Utah Jazz in December 1995. That player won the Most Improved Player award in 1994, and in a related action covered up the Nike logos on his shows after his shoe deal expired. As a result of this action, two local disc jockeys were sued after blaring “The Star Spangled Banner” in a mosque. The player involved stated “My beliefs are more important than anything. If I have to give up basketball, I will.”, and this incident ended with a compromise where we would join his teammates but look downward and recite a prayer instead. The central player involved was born Chris Jackson and claimed a particular symbol “stood for tyranny and oppression.” For 10 Points, identify this incident where a Denver Nuggets point guard refused to participate in pre-game pro-America pageantry.
ANSWER: Mahmoud Abdul-Raufnot standing during the national anthem (accept clear-knowledge equivalents)
Description Acceptable
14. This shot tied the game it was in at 102, in a game where Happy Hairston scored 6 and Bill Bradley 7. It was followed by an overtime period which the road team won, 9-6; the maker of this shot missed five other shots in overtime. The play preceding this short was a heavily contested made jumper by Dave Debusschere with three seconds remaining. Elgin Baylor fouled out of the game this shot occurred in, which was played in the Great Western Forum, and one team’s leading scorer was Willis Reed with 38. Los Angeles lacked any timeouts, so Wilt Chamberlain inbounded the ball to his team’s shooting guard near the free throw line immediately after Debusschere’s make. For 10 Points, identify this shot, a miraculous heave which tied Game 3 of the 1970 NBA Finals.
ANSWER: Jerry West’s60-Foot Shot (or halfcourt shot, or descriptor that indicates it was a very long shot attempt)
15. This coach once quipped that Tim Frazier’s injury would leave him out for 2 ½ years and that his team needed a “voodoo doctor” when many injuries struck them in 2016. His first lengthy stint was as an assistant under Kevin Loughery in Miami in the early ‘90s, followed by his first head coaching job in Detroit, losing in the first round both years. On a recent Lowe Post, he revealed that Draymond Green owed him money after he managed to dunk by jumping off a padded wall. After serving as an assistant to a championship team, he proclaimed “Tell Mike D’Antoni he’s vindicated! We just kicked everyone’s ass [playing his way]”. He led the Clippers to their short-lived resurgence in the early 2000s, but gained more fame as an assistant and later head coach of the Seven Seconds or Less Suns. For 10 Points, name this current coach of the New Orleans Pelicans.
ANSWER: AlvinGentry
16. In Game 6 of this series, one team scored 46 in the 4th quarter to nearly erase a 31-point deficit but still lost by 10. Big man Scott Williams missed the 7th game of this series for elbowing an opposing star in the throat, and Bill Simmons called this the “Earnie Shavers” of crooked series for being memorable if second-rate. Tim Thomas hit 4 threes in a losing effort in Game 4, and Game 6 featured a teammate of his hitting a then-record 9 three-pointers. In Game 5, one team got 18 points from 6th man Eric Snow and won by a single point when Glenn Robinson couldn’t hit from eight feet out as time expired. For 10 Points, what Eastern Conference series saw 44 in Game 7, and 190 points altogether, from MVP Allen Iverson in a matchup between the Bucks and the Sixers?
ANSWER: The 2001 Eastern Conference Finals
17.Bill Musselman served as coach of this team twice in the early ‘80s. Bill Fitch served as this franchise’s coach in their first season in 1970, on a team headed by Jim Chones and Jim Cleamons. A series of lucky breaks for this team in the 1975-6 season, including Dick Snyder’s last-second shot to beat the Bullets in Game 7 of the Conference Semifinals, was known as the “Miracle of Richfield”. Over the 1982-3 seasons, this team compiled what was, at the time, an NBA-record 24-game losing streak. In the late ‘80s they achieved a run of success after the acquisition of Larry Nance and the drafting of Mark Price, and took Brad Daugherty as the first overall pick in 1986. Their 1989 playoff run featured Craig Ehlo failing to stop a last-second double-pump jump shot that gave the Bulls the series. For 10 Points, name this perennially dismal Central Division Eastern team, the victims of “The Shot” by Michael Jordan.
ANSWER: The ClevelandCavaliers