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Derrick White’s buzzer-beater in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals will be remembered for a long, long time, especially if the Celtics go on to beat the Heat in Game 7 on Monday as well.
Playoff buzzer-beaters in general tend to go down in history, but a buzzer-beater that ends up in the same sentence as Michael Jordan’s “The Shot”? Yeah, that’s a little extra special.
And that’s the exclusive company that White joined Saturday night. According to ESPN Stats & Info and Basketball-Reference, White became just the second player in NBA history to make a buzzer-beater when his team was facing elimination and trailing in the game prior to the shot.
The only other player to do it was Jordan, in Game 5 of a best-of-five first-round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1989. That shot, with Jordan hanging in the air over Craig Ehlo and then pumping his fist in celebration, became so famous it is known simply as “The Shot.”
White’s winner might not quite have the same iconic imagery of Jordan’s leaping fist pump, especially since it wasn’t immediately clear whether he had gotten the shot off in time. Still, any time there’s a list of two players who have done something and the other one is Jordan, you’re in pretty great company.
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