The thundering roar bounced all over Staples Center after a big man threw down a powerful one-handed dunk that secured a victory.
Was it Blake Griffin electrifying the crowd for a Clippers’ home game? Nope. Was it DeAndre Jordan, who often does the same thing for Lob City? Nope. Was it Larry Nance Jr, who has earned some good-will with the Lakers after the rookie forward took after his dad in a recent preseason game? Nope.
It was Lakers forward Ryan Kelly, who is known as a stretch forward, a fundamentally sound player and a man who lacks hops.
“I break it out every once in a while and surprise some people,” Kelly insisted after posting nine points on 2-of-4 shooting and four rebounds in 12 minutes. “I”m not the slowest guy or worst jumper out there.”
Kelly clearly isn’t. But never had the 6-foot-11, 230-pound Kelly secured a game-winning dunk ever in his life. Until now. With two seconds remaining, Kelly caught the ball at the top of the key off an inbounds play. Portland forward Omari Johnson sagged off of Kelly. He then drove into the lane and finished with a one-handed slam that gave the Lakers’ a 104-102 preseason win over the Portland Trail Blazers at Staples Center.
Kelly screamed afterwards. His teammmates high-fived him. And later on in the locker room, Nance. Jr continuously called it “the dunk of the preseason,” even better than when he leaped at the top of the key for a one-handed slam three days earlier.
“Anytime you can get a win, that’s the dunk of the preseason,” Nance Jr. said. “I didn’t win a game with mine.”
All of which begs the question: will Kelly enter his third NBA season competing to enter the NBA Dunk Contest during All-Star weekend?
“Not even thinking about it,” said Kelly, laughing.
But it turns out someone wouldn’t give Kelly a perfect score.
“He’s trying to compete now with Larry,” Scott joked. “Larry still elevates a little bit higher. But they both were pretty good.”
Scott sounded in a good mood for a different reason.
“I’m glad it wasn’t going to be overtime,” Scott said.
But the Lakers nearly did. They led, 100-94, with 25.2 seconds left before performing what Kelly called “a bunch of mistakes.” Lakers backup center Robert Sacre fouled Portland guard Pat Connaughton on a three-point attempt. He made all three foul shots to cut the lead to 100-97 with 21.4 seconds left.
Said Scott: “I was thinking of killing Robert Sacre for fouling him on a 3-point shot.”
After Lakers guard Jabari Brown made a pair of foul shots for a 102-97 lead with 17.5 seconds left, Portland center Chris Kaman picked up a rebound and converted on a mid-range jumper that made it 102-99 with 9.9 seconds left. Kelly then threw a poor inbounds pass to Lakers rookie point guard D’Angelo Russell, who fumbled the ball. Connaughton picked the ball and drilled a 3-pointer to tie the game, 102-102 with two seconds left.
“I made a mistake on an out of bounds play and should have called timeout,” Kelly said. “We shouldn’t have been in the situation in the first place. I wanted to make up for it and make the play that made the difference.”
So the Lakers ran an inbounds play that originally called for Kelly to catch the ball at the elbow and handoff to Brown at the top of the key. Instead, Kelly found an opening. He then sprinted toward the basket and performed his best imitation of Griffin and Nance Jr.
“He got a lot higher,” Kelly said of Nance Jr.’s. “But they were both pretty good dunks.”
And they were both dunks Nance Jr. hoped they could replicate throughout the 2015-16 season.
“We see little glimpse here and again. He’s what you call a sneaky athlete,” Nance Jr. said of Kelly. “If we can get one from me to him and him to me, that would be pretty cool.”
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