Every Game Winning Buzzer Beater

Cool. I exported the data to excel and compiled some curious facts:

Teams that hit most buzzer beaters:

1. Boston: 47
2. New York: 41 (this really suprised me, since they have been irrelevant for years. Altough to be fair, it's possible that the biggest correlation to buzzer beaters are years in the league and not winning. Some one less lazy than me should do that math);
3. Lakers: 37
4. Chicago: 35
5. Milwaukee: 33.

Teams that suffered the most buzzer beater defeats:

1. Boston: 40
2. Detroit: 39 (they only hit 19 winners, so they are the "unluckiest" team in this regard, having the biggest negative net ration between game winners and game losers);
3. Lakers: 33
4. New York: 29
4. Chicago: 29

Player that hit most buzzer beaters:

1. Michael Jordan: 9
2. Kobe Bryant: 8
2. Joe Johnson: 8 (Iso Joe for the win!);
4. Lebron: 7
4. Paul Pierce: 7

Just comes to show how rare these types of shots actually are. Have to appreciate each and everyone of them.

Houston Stats

Buzzer beater hits: 26

Buzzer beater defeats: 23

Player with most buzzer beaters:

1. Hakeem: 3
1. Mochie Norris: 3
2. Harden: 2
2. Moses Malone: 3

Team we hit most buzzer beaters against: Phoenix Suns - 4 - Harden's two buzzer beater were against them. One in 2013 and the other in 2015.

Team we suffered most buzzer beater defeats: Portland - 3: how that Lillard one in the playoffs hurt.

A last interesting fact: the last two buzzer beaters of this kind in the NBA were against Houston.

 

Steph has zero buzzer beaters?? Even his dad has one, a 3 against the Warriors to win by 1

 

It really is frustrating seeing the stat alongside "clutch" talk, while other non "buzzer beaters" aren't included such as Currys near halfcourt game winner against OKC which left .6 seconds left or T-macs game winner against SA or probably many, many more game winners from MJ and Kobe which left time on the clock.

 

We lost to the last 2 buzzers in nba history

 

yeah i remember when the jazz made their 3 against us, i started looking at how common 3 point buzzer beaters were. something like 9 straight were missed before the one against the jazz and, as you said, before the 9 straight was the kings against us. there are only a handful a year in the whole league (13 the last 3 years). of course, in our glory year of 2017-2018, we actually made 2 (gordon, green) so i guess what goes around, comes around.

 

The Lillard shot was a knuckle ball. The path it travelled to the basket was so bizarre.

 

Yeah, it would be interesting to know how many winning buzzer beater shots attempts. Then we'd know the shooting percentage.

 

i agree with your overall point, and as a side point i also think it goes to show how overrated last second shots tend to be because they are so rare. granted, one playoff game can mean a lot, but sometimes it's 1 win in a 4-1 or 1-4 series. like look at kobe's playoff career. by my count he hit 5 shots in the last 10 seconds to win or tie a game (5-22). 200 something game sample and there were 5 game winning/tying shots. against thousands of other shots, other plays, other things that determined whether the lakers or the other team won. and how consequential were those shots?

the first was in 2000 in a second round game 2 against phoenix in a series the lakers won 4-1

the second was in a 2002 second round series game 4 agianst the spurs in a series the lakers won 4-1

the next 2 occurred in the same game against the suns, to force OT and to win OT. the lakers then lost 3 straight and lost the series.

the next was against detroit in game 2 of the finals. the lakers then lost 3 straight and lost the series.

so in a 5 championship, 200+ game playoff career, last second made shots (not just buzzer beaters) only even indirectly led to 2 titles by helping win games in 2nd round series the lakers ultimately won 4-1.

 

Impressive to see Iso Joe up there. You figure it's a given that a superstar leader of his team for over a decade will be high up in attempts and makes like MJ, Kobe and Lebron. I imagine Joe Johnsons were mostly as the leader of the Hawks which only tells me there were a lot of close games(of which i recall against Houston), which also tells me Atlanta messed up not building enough around Joe. They wasted too much time with Mike Woodson at coach. They were a 30+win 8th seed that almost knocked off the eventual champs-newly formed superteam Celtics. Beat Miami in a 7 game first round the next year.

I see what you mean. I think the stats will remain to use as argument, but the eye test is what we truly have to judge how clutch a player is throughout his career. A reputation for being clutch is earned through enough 2nd half, or 4th quarter performances + game winners/buzzer beaters/game tiers. Unfortunately eye test fades with the generation of fans getting older and newer generations not believing the eye test. In rarer company even, how many players up their regular season stats to playoff stats. I'd say that's pretty clutch to up your major stat lines in playoff mode. MJ and Hakeem come to mind. Possibly LeBron or at least extremely consistent with his regular season stats. Most players generally take a dip.

 

One of these things is not like the others.

 

kevin garnett has 5?

the 2 damian lillard shots you can think of are amazingly his only 2.

5 of lebron's 7 are playoff games (1 in a lost series, 1 in a sweep (lebronto), 3 actually important to winning the series but only 1 of the 3 in a title year)

larry bird none in the playoffs (4 overall)

magic johnson none in the playoffs (3 overall, seems like i've seen highlights of like 7 or 8, maybe they were mostly with time remaining)

jordan 9 with 3 in the playoffs (2 in title years, but one was against cleveland in '93 so probably not that important)

paul pierce with 7 and 2 in the playoffs (neither for a title)

robert horry surprisingly with one 3 and 1 in a playoff game (very instrumental to a title)

duncan none in the playoffs (3 overall)

wilt none in the playoffs (3 overall)

bill russell none in the playoffs (none overall)

 

I probably remember 1 out of the 3(!!!) buzzer beaters Moochie had. Dude had a memorable victory pose.

Dream with the buzzer beater dunk!

 

The problem with eye test is that winning buzzer beater shots are by nature memorable. We remember the made ones, but forget all the missed ones.

 

i would still defer to stats over eye test because we forget so much, but i do agree that i want a guy who is more certain to give me a great game/great playoff run/great 4th quarter over a guy who might have a 5% better chance of making a fairly rare last second shot. part of the reason i think it's so easy to argue for hakeem in all-time rankings is he is one of like 2 all-time greats who has a higher playoff PER, WS/48, and TS% compared to the regular season. elevating counting stats is not that rare in the playoffs. but that kind of elevation of advanced stats just doesn't happen. jordan has slight dips but they still result in him being #1 all-time in the playoffs in PER and WS/48.

lebron has slight dips but he's still #2 in both i believe. it's why it's so difficult to put lebron anywhere but #2 all-time. as terrible as the 2011 finals were for lebron, virtually every other playoff thing he has done (including the 2 series right before those finals) were the work of a stone cold killer. 5 buzzer beaters, a 2009 playoff run where he shattered the playoff PER and WS/48 records, highest scoring average ever in elimination games, 7 straight finals with crazy stats even though 2 of them were against the spurs all-time great defense and 4 were against the warriors death line-up defense which was perfectly suited to guard elite perimeter players. not to mention the complete annihilation of the (admittedly weak) eastern conference, even in years with injuries to teammates or having lesser teammates (2018).

knowing someone will show up in the games that matter most and having that "what are we supposed to do?" feeling as he dominates a 4th quarter is what i consider clutch far more than often erroneous views of how much someone makes last second shots. like chauncey billups being called mr. big shot for like 7 or 8 years after a few clutch moments when the stats showed he was literally one of the least likely players to make a last second shot in those 7 or 8 years.

 

I'm surprised to see Vernon Maxwell has only one for the Rockets. What about this one:



Did they put time back on the clock?

 

from the highlight, it only tied the game. the list is only buzzer beaters than won the game.