We’ve all seen game-winning shots before.
They’re rare, admittedly. Flip around on league pass or take a scroll through your social media of choice, and you might find one on any given night of the NBA season.
In fact, there have been 13 game-winning buzzer beating shots in the 2024-25 NBA season, so far.
It’s time to add another to the list.
In spectacular fashion, Josh Giddey launched a heave from 46.5 feet away, two steps beyond half court. It went in. The Chicago Bulls beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 119-117.
Improbable as it may have been, the preceding sequence may have been even more unlikely. It’s hard to imagine a more eventful 12.6 seconds of NBA basketball.
With 12.6 seconds to go, the Bulls (33-40) were down 115-110 with the ball being taken out at the sideline. Gidde throws a cross court pass to Nikola Vucevic, who hot potatoes it to Patrick Williams for a corner three. Now down two, with 9.8 seconds left, Giddey steals LeBron James’ inbounds bounce pass and kicks it back to Coby White for a three on the wing.
“He kind of just bounced it,” Giddey said. “I knew it was going to Reaves, and he bounced it. I was surprised at how easily I was able to grab it. And then I was going to go to the rim and I saw guys collapsing and Coby was wide open.”
Somehow, the Bulls erase a five-point lead in a matter of 6.1 seconds.
Still, that’s enough time for the Lakers to draw up a sideline out play to win the game. Lakers coach JJ Redick drew up what a dribble handoff play from Luka Doncic to Austin Reaves, but Reaves felt an opening to the lane, took it and scored. Lakers now up 117-116 with 3.1 seconds to go.
That’s when Giddey threw an inbounds pass ahead to Williams, who left it back for Giddey, who launched a 46.5 foot moonball at the buzzer.
“I think more than just the shot, the one in the end, the way we got it,” Giddey started. “Pat hit the big three. We got to steal, Coby hit a three. Got down again. We hit another three. Besides from the last shot that went it, there was a lot that went up to that. So credit to the guys fighting back. We could have thrown the towel at any point in that fourth quarter, but we stuck with it. It was a fun game to be a part of.”
Giddey said he blacked out somewhere between the ball leaving his hands at mid-court and and the team mobbing him in the right corner, celebrating with the raucous United Center crowd. He finished with 25 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists on 42 percent shooting.
The Bulls should not have won that game. Down 18 with 10:18 minutes to go, the Lakers had a win probability of 99.2 percent. When Reaves hit the two free throws to go up 115-110, the Lakers had a 99.6 percent chance to win.
The Bulls needed to shoot 15-of-19 from the field (78.9 percent) and 11-of-14 from three (78.6 percent) during the fourth quarter to get back in the game, make two threes within 2.6 seconds, and hit a half court buzzer beater to win it. That’s closer to impossible than improbable.
“The probability of us winning that game is probably very low, but we defied the odds,” White, who scored 26 points, extending his streak of 20-or-more to 14, said. “I’m gonna remember that for the rest of my life.”
“Definitely the funnest. Definitely the most entertaining. Definitely a big win,” White added.
The Bulls have now won nine-of-11 games, during which time they own the league’s sixth best net rating. They’re even better in the clutch, boasting a 36.7 net rating, which leads the league. With nine games to go in the regular season, they’re getting hot at the right time. The vibes in the locker room are immaculate and the internal belief is as strong as ever.
And now a game-and-a-half back of the Orlando Magic, they’ve even got a chance to move up to the eighth seed, where they could win their way to the seventh seed in the Playoffs or at least guarantee themselves two Play-In games.
“We’ve shown, over the last probably month, six weeks, that we can compete with anybody,” Giddey said. “And it’s just the way we play the game. I think it wears teams down. We get up and down, we run we put heat on teams to get back. And a lot of veteran teams that don’t typically want to get back and then keep playing in transition. So we understand our game plan and our identity, and I think when we stick to it, we’re a tough team to beat, and we’ve shown that over the last however long. And obviously we’re rolling right now.”
