Miracle of miracles

Never did I think that a Chinese player could imitate T-Mac, yet in every way Wang Shipeng shamelessly copied T-Mac's famous last shot of his even more famous 12 points in 33 seconds. Wang took the ball from his own baseline, as did T-Mac. He pulled up about two feet behind the three-point line, on the left wing, with two guys in his face. So did T-Mac. And, like T-Mac, he made it. The only thing he didn't do was scissor his legs during the shot and then do a fist punch and yell.



And the first to congratulate Wang was Yao. And the first to congratulate T-Mac was Yao. Faithful Yao. Spectator Yao. Because once again it wasn't really Yao that won the game. On the Rockets, it was T-Mac who made the threes and all Yao did was watch (and set the screens). This time, once again, it wasn't Yao who took the scoring load. Actually, he missed several shots down the stretch. It was Wang ZhiZhi who scored 5 straight points to tie the game. It was Zhu Fangyu who hit a huge fallaway three-pointer to cut the lead to one. And, then of course, it was Wang SP who hit the gamewinner.

Not, of course, that Yao didn't do his part. He played every seconds of the game, like some gigantic Wilt, and he put up numbers to match as well (and he didn't foul out). 36 points, 10 rebounds, and 4 blocks, 13-21 from the field and 10-12 from the line (In this he surpasses Wilt). For the first three quarters, he absolutely unstoppable, and he scored 17 alone in the third, where they made their big comeback. But in the fourth, he really started to tire, and he started shorting some shots. But, hey, they won, so who cares?