Hamidou Diallo’s Windmill Dunk Attempt Against The Knicks Went Horribly Wrong

The Thunder crushed the Knicks on Wednesday night in Oklahoma City, blowing out New York in a lopsided 128-103 win.

While beating the Knicks isn’t exactly a spectacular feat for a team like the Thunder, any win without Russell Westbrook is a good one, especially when they’re able to do so without needing Paul George to even play 30 minutes — he had 35 points in 29 minutes. The Thunder were able to lean on their bench down the stretch to close the deal, and rookie Hamidou Diallo led the OKC bench with 11 points.

Diallo has been a pleasant surprise this season for the Thunder, and while he had another strong effort on Wednesday, it was a blunder that will be the lasting image of the game. Up 23 in the closing minutes, Diallo got the ball on a fast-break with no one in front of him and decided to go for a massive windmill dunk. The problem was that something went wrong on takeoff, and he ended up throwing the ball off the backboard and crashing to the floor.

Somehow, this still resulted in a basket for the Thunder, but it’s a hysterical miss from Diallo. This is a reminder of the danger of going for style points on a dunk in a blowout. Not only could you upset the opponent (that’s less of a concern), but by upping the degree of difficulty on a dunk, the more you bring in the chance for spectacular failure.

Usually, we see dunks missed by clanging off the rim, but in this case, Diallo never even got to that point as he rocketed the ball off the glass as he fell. I’m sure this is one his teammates will remind him of plenty, but at least it came in a big win.