San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginobili (20) pumps his fist after hitting the winning shot in the final seconds of the team’s NBA basketball game against the Boston Celtics, Friday, Dec. 8, 2017, in San Antonio. San Antonio won 105-102.

Season 51, Game 26
San Antonio 105, Boston 102
18-8, 3rd in the West

Sometimes, a game requires an in-depth analysis that breaks down plus/minus and true shooting percentages.

Sometimes, a game reveals mismatches that one team exploits over the other and can be talked about at length.

Sometimes, a team gets lucky and steals a win against a better team in perfect storm scenarios.

And then sometimes, a 40-year-old Manu Ginobili steps out of the phone booth and reminds us he can still save the world from time to time.

Make no mistake, this game was worthy of its True Shooting Percentage analysis or its mismatch exploitation recap. But the heroics of Manu Ginoboli, which I surmise are taken for granted more than any other player in Spurs history, are exponentially more impressive than can be verbalized. It’s quite simple really:

Manu Ginobili is a gem. A national treasure, who should be preserved. A rose in a field of thorns. On a snowy night in San Antonio, Manu Ginobili hit a game winner and there was only one thing to say:

He is Manu, Forever.

One can surmise that last night’s conclusion to both the first and second half was just another regular night for the Argentinian. It was just Manu being Manu. After all, he is Manu, and this is what he does. It’s nothing special. It’s just…lucky.

But I don’t buy it from Manu. We’ve all listened to him for years humbly defer to the basketball gods as the source of his success from time to time. We’ve all become a bit too comfortable with Manu using the phrase, “I got lucky.” Certainly, the ball can bounce anyone’s way from time to time. But if it always seems to bounce Manu’s way, maybe it’s not just luck.

There is something to be said about both of Manu’s buzzer beaters.

The first is hidden in plain sight, disguised as a broken play and can easily be dismissed as “lucky.” With 4.9 seconds to go in the half, Patty Mills came back to Davis Bertans and received the ball. Mills was immediately met by Marcus Smart in the backcourt, who gave Patty a little knock.

But this what makes Manu so great. Seeing Mills getting bumped, in the back court, with under 5 seconds to go, Manu makes a slow, drifting drag across the top of the key, going against the grain and moving opposite Patty Mills. Kyrie clearly thought Manu would come straight to the ball instead of dragging and was too far out of position to recover once the pass was delivered.

Manu then has the sensory skills and awareness to get the shot up quickly over Baynes, who was about to come help. The result was a beautiful look from 24 feet which Manu got off in plenty of time. Manu called this lucky, but I call it incredible court awareness. The shot will go in or it won’t. But Manu put himself in that play. He had the situational awareness to read the play from Patty, get to the right spot, drag across instead of go to the ball, release from one defender, avoid a second, catch, turn and shoot…in 4:9 seconds.

Sorry, Manu. That’s not luck.

The game winner wasn’t either.

Manu, at 40, fought off Jayson Tatum for the rebound to keep the possession alive. The rebound won’t get talked about, but luck doesn’t put you in those type of situations. Then he gave the ball to Patty, who gave the ball right back to the 40-year-old left-handed Manu Ginobili on the right side of the court, guarded by the 19-year-old Jayson Tatum, who has 27 games of NBA experience.

Manu knows he has to get Tatum on his left side, even though he is on the right side of the court. You can see in his eyes, he wants Tatum on his left hip and so Aldridge can pin him and then roll, leaving Tatum behind on the play. So he resets the entire screen and shows incredible patience for Aldridge to get the full inertia of Tatum on the outside him. It’s essentially a 2-on-1 at this point.

But then a wrinkle. Al Horford, Aldridge’s man, decides to close out that passing lane to Aldridge and trusts Tatum to get back in the play. So, Manu reads it, in real time, and pulls up. Horford’s close out was just a hedge and he recovers quickly, heading back to Manu. Manu sees this happening before even Horford does and adjusts, arching the ball into the rafters and burying it for the win.

That’s a lot of moving parts to just call luck. How many times do you see teams who don’t get a shot off at the end of a quarter? Or they do, but it’s a heave? Or they just isolate a player one-on-one and don’t send a screen out, creating zero action. That’s luck. It’s luck if it happens once. It’s probably lucky if it happens twice. Sometimes it can be luck. If this is just what Manu does, and he does it over the course of his career, then it’s not luck.

Sometimes, it’s Manu, Forever.

Up next, The Spurs get the Phoenix Suns on Saturday night, but it’s going to probably be an L, just so everyone knows. According to Tom Orsborn, a third of the team isn’t even traveling.

And hopefully Danny Green’s groin injury isn’t too severe. I’d much rather see him join the Klaw on the court than Kyle Anderson on the bench. It would be nice to see this team healthy and whole. They’ve been pretty lucky this year.

Or have they?

Go Spurs Go.

 Photo credit: AP Photo/Eric Gay