“The dream,” Jeff Van Gundy mentioned, laughing, “is that you figure something out and nobody else figures it out until it’s too late. That almost never happens. But I saw it happen.”
This was a number of weeks in the past, earlier than St. John’s ill-fated journey to Windfall, and Van Gundy was ruminating concerning the 12 months he spent on Rick Pitino’s workers with the Windfall Friars in 1986-87. In that 12 months, the Windfall coaches workplaces have been house to a mad scientist named Rick Pitino — and his fascination with the newly adopted 3-point shot.
Pitino hadn’t invented the rule, after all; it was an integral a part of the previous ABA. And in 1979, the NBA adopted the rule, too; on Oct. 12, 1979, an hour north of Windfall’s Alumni Corridor at previous Boston Backyard, Chris Ford made the primary 3 in NBA historical past. But as that ’86-’87 season progressed, an attention-grabbing factor occurred. The Windfall coaches began to marvel in the event that they’d been the one group that bought the memo.
The primary recreation of that season, towards American College, the Friars scored the season’s first factors on a 3. Then they stole the inbounds, made one other 3. Then they made one other steal, this time on their finish of the court docket, and this one led to a quick break. And within the earlier 96 years of the game’s existence, that will’ve meant a 3-on-2 or a 2-on-1 to the basket. As an alternative, two Windfall gamers peeled off behind the 3-point line. Billy Donovan discovered one in all them, Pop Lewis.
