What Was Reggie Miller Talking About at the End of the Lakers-Pelicans Game?

Anthony Davis sealed the Los Angeles Lakers‘ 110-106 Play-In Tournament victory over the New Orleans Pelicans last night by sinking two free throws with 2.1 seconds remaining. The star center chose to make both attempts to push the lead to four points instead of bricking the second and allowing the Pelicans’ a chance to send things to overtime with a long-distance heave. Which was 100 percent the right decision. Hell, it wasn’t really any decision at all.

In the moment, Reggie Miller wasn’t so sure.

“There’s things that you talk about on the bus as players,” Miller, who was working the game for TNT said. “If he makes the first one, you’re up three. Do you try to purposely miss the second one knowing if they don’t have any timeouts and they’ve got to go coast-to-coast because as soon as you miss it time is going to start. Or do you just make them both, be up four, and game over.”

That sort of seems like a trick question. Because when one of the options is “game over” it really feels like that is the one to pick if you want the game to be over. You’ll have no trouble finding people who are going to get into Miller for the perplexing commentary but the thing I want to focus on is the idea of players driving home from games on the bus and debating such things. Miller is a Hall of Famer and has put together a lengthy broadcasting career so he certainly knows what players talk about. It’s just shocking that such conversations take place. One has to imagine if a coach overheard such a spirited debate they would sprint to the back of the charter and clear things up immediately, just in case the embrace of debate laid the groundwork for such a bad strategic decision down the line when it mattered most.

Thankfully for the Lakers, Davis had studied all the charts and graphs and understood the assignment. And we can put this argument to bed for good. Winning is better than potentially losing.