2) The Plummer Stops The Flush.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to be Kevin Garnett & Paul Pierce vs. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh. It shouldn’t have come down to a rookie making the biggest basketball play of the year in the regular season against a player that may very well go down as the best player in NBA history.
But Mason Plumlee, a 24-year-old rookie that the team thought would spend most of the season in the D-League, rose up and met James right at the rim, swatting the shot away and sealing the win. It completed Brooklyn’s season sweep of the Heat, after they hadn’t beaten them once in the Big 3 era.
Paul Pierce’s block on Kyle Lowry to seal Game 7 was more important, but this block was just cooler. Lowry flung a floater from the floor, Plumlee stuffed the most powerful rim attacker in the game at his height.
It wasn’t supposed to be possible. A dude with less than 60 NBA games under his belt and the name “Plums” on his back blocked a four-time MVP on a dunk to seal that MVP’s fourth straight loss against the team of the Plums. How ridiculous was the block? It gave fans the idea that the Nets should actually be the favorites against the Heat in a seven-game playoff series. That’s patently ridiculous and insanely defensible, thanks to the sweep.
Regular season success is just that, and the Nets couldn’t handle the Heat come playoff time, losing in five games when playoff LeBron James showed up. But Mason Plumlee has a highlight that’ll last him his entire career, in a game he’ll never forget.
