Chris Bosh Gives Heat Lead On Fadeaway, Al Jefferson Misses Game-Winning Tip

The margin between winning and losing in basketball can be a matter of inches. Tens of possessions decide whether a game’s final moments matter, but once they do a humbling reality always becomes abundantly clear: This is a make or miss game. Just ask the Charlotte Hornets. After Chris Bosh hit a tough baseline fadeaway to put the Miami Heat up one with 31 seconds left, Kemba Walker and Al Jefferson just missed far easier shots on the game’s final possession that would have given their team the win.

Here’s Bosh, finding his inner- Kobe Bryant on an exceedingly difficult fadeaway jumper to give Miami a lead:

That’s not a shot that Bosh normally takes, let alone makes in crunch-time. But sometimes the ball just has a way of finding the basket…other times it inexplicably doesn’t.

The teams traded failed possessions from there, setting the stage for Charlotte’s final try at a win. Walker got a good shot, and Jefferson got a much better one – but neither fell:

Nine times out of 10, Big Al’s tap falls through and the Hornets leave South Beach with a hard-fought win. Instead, the Hornets head into tonight’s back-to-back against the Los Angeles Clippers losers of five straight games. They’ve begun the season 4-10 after an offseason that promised progress on a promising 2013-2014 and gleaned major excitement from the franchise’s re-branding.

The Heat, meanwhile, have won two in a row sans Dwyane Wade to rebound nicely from a recent three-game losing streak. Bosh is riding high after regaining the early November form that made him a possible MVP candidate, and Mario Chalmers is playing perhaps the best basketball of his career. Would either matter if Jefferson made his tip? Hardly.

But that’s how basketball goes. The very best teams find a way to avoid late fourth quarter possessions that decide a game’s fate; some others just feel lucky to have to have them at all.

The 8-6 Heat are somewhere in between those extremes, and the 4-10 Hornets trend towards the latter. And due to one made difficult shot and another missed easy one, they’re continuing those directions today.