Just a few games ago on December 11th, the injury-riddled LA Clippers defeated the underwhelming Orlando Magic 106-104. As exciting as that sounds, the game was actually pretty thrilling, and a lot of that has to do with Reggie Jackson’s beautiful game winner.
Despite having a piddling 5-20 record at the time, the Magic played much better than advertised against the Clippers’ top 5 defense and were able to hang around all night long. There were 9 ties and 12 lead changes during the back-and-forth game, which eventually found itself tied with 23 seconds left in regulation. On the final possession, the Clippers won thanks to a buzzer-beater from Reggie Jackson.
It was awesome, as all buzzer-beaters are, but there was something different about this particular buzzer-beater. In fact, it instantly became one of my favorite Clipper buzzer-beaters of all time. But not for the reasons you might think.
Setting the Stage
Heading into this game, Reggie Jackson had been in a slump. In the previous 5 games our hero was scoring at a paltry 41% true shooting efficiency (34% from the field, 24% from three).
He’d had an eerily similar rough patch to start the season where he shot the same 41% true shooting efficiency (31% from the field, 29% from three). But that rough patch was ended at the end of a comeback victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder on November 1st, where Reggie made an absolutely huge floater to complete the comeback and was rewarded with a bear hug from his friend Paul George. “I needed that hug,” Reggie would say after the game, known thereafter as “the Hug Game.”
Between the Hug Game and the second shooting slump, Reggie shot a very respectable 55% true shooting efficiency (44% from the field, 37% from three).
This is something we’ve started to grow accustomed to with Reggie, as he had a similar turnaround mid-season last year that led to a truly fantastic playoff run. This resulted in Reggie becoming a true fan favorite, and contributed to the tears of appreciation we saw from Reggie in his post-season exit interview. Many of us (myself included) had doubted Reggie in January 2021, and many of us (myself included) vowed to never repeat that mistake again.
So after the last game of the recent shooting slump, I had commented that he was in need of another hug game. And this was that game… literally.
After this second Hug Game, Reggie is once again scoring at 55% true shooting efficiency (46% from the field, 38% from three). That’s some damn consistent streakiness, for all you oxymoron aficionados out there.
Unlike the first Hug Game, Reggie was great from the tip-off in the second Hug Game. And this time his finish was more than just a big bucket; he carried the team. Reggie scored or assisted on 12 out of the final 13 points of the game for the Clippers. He was just incredible. And for the final possession, he had the entire arena chanting his name “REGGIE, REGGIE, REGGIE”—it would take more than a cold spell to dissuade us from our Reggie fandom. This was our guy through thick and thin.
But Reggie’s redemption story isn’t the only reason this buzzer-beater was one of my favorites.
The Classic Underdog
Let’s take a quick detour and talk about Clipper Fandom. I love underdogs. If you’re a Clipper fan reading this, you probably do too. And whenever a shorthanded Clippers squad puts together a scrappy win, I know I’m not alone in finding it especially satisfying. We all grew up watching underdogs in sports movies like the Karate Kid, Hoosiers, the Little Giants, Rudy, the Mighty Ducks, Miracle, Rocky—we’ve been conditioned to love this stuff.
The Mighty Ducks Triple Deke:
![D1 | THE MIGHTY DUCKS | The Ducks Wins! [5-4]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3HvkKTyLQMo/hqdefault.jpg)
The Karate Kid totally legal kick:
Rudy’s Heartwarming 27-Second Collegiate Career:
Rocky III when Rocky finally makes his comeback against Clubber Lang and, with the crowd chanting his name, “ROCKY, ROCKY, ROCKY” and he…
…punches Mr. T in the face 500 times while Apollo Creed shadowboxes in the corner?
Okay better example, Rocky IV when the hostile Russian crowd starts chanting his name as he defeats the seemingly unstoppable Ivan Drago:
All of these scenes have something in common. The stage is set perfectly as the music swells as they finally achieve their seemingly impossible goal. And Reggie Jackson’s buzzer-beater was no different. It was a go-ahead shot with 23 seconds left in the game, with the crowd chanting “REGGIE, REGGIE, REGGIE” while Europe’s The Final Countdown (1986) played in the background.
On the broadcast you could barely hear the music, but in Farbod Esnaashari’s incredible video from the baseline, you could hear it, clear as crystal, the fans’ “REGGIE” chant and subsequent cheer as the shot swished through the net synchronized perfectly with the music. The result was straight out of a classic sports movie, and truly epic in every sense of the word:
Who care if it was against the 5-20 Orlando Magic?
Perfection is perfection.