The Houston Rockets found themselves up big and only one 3-pointer shy of tying the NBA record for 3-pointers in a game after back-to-back trifectas from Gerald Green put them up by 21 against the Washington Wizards with 5:16 left in the fourth quarter.
During the next few minutes, the game slowed down considerably, and with all of the starters having taken a seat, a Gary Clark 29-footer tied the record (set by the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Atlanta Hawks on March 3, 2017 and then repeated in Game 4 of the 2017 NBA Finals), leaving Michael Carter-Williams with the task of breaking it.
Known marksmen like Eric Gordon, Chris Paul and James Harden had buried in four, five, and six 3-pointers, respectively, but it came down to the most unlikely shooter — a career 25.4 percent shooter in Carter-Williams to take the last shot with 31.1 seconds left in the game.
“My teammates were screaming, ‘Shoot it! Shoot it!” said Carter-Williams, according to Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. “You’re just out there trying to make the last one. I had a good, clean look. I just tried to knock it down. We knew if we didn’t at least attempt it, we’d have heard it in the locker room. It was all in good fun.”
Carter-Williams went 1-of-3 from beyond the arc, totaling five points in his brief four-minute stint in garbage time, but his last bucket was as big of a morale booster as Harden's game-leading 35 points.
For one night, the Rockets resembled the team that took the floor last season with a dominant franchise-high 65 wins, one unafraid to fire and relishing every opportunity to inflict damage by bombing away from the outside.
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