While everyone’s focused on the new year ahead, some players still have business to finish on New Year’s Eve. This is the countdown of the five players who did it the best in the final game of the year, ranging from two Clippers, to one of Dime’s favorite players of all time, to the GOAT. All of them closed out their calendar years in the best ways possible. There may be six games on today’s schedule, but it’s going to be hard to beat these performances.
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5. ELTON BRAND, 2006
Though Dwight Howard‘s 17 points and 22 rebounds in 2007 were nice, Howard shot just 36 percent in that game against an aging Chicago front line of Joe Smith and Ben Wallace. The No. 5 spot goes, instead, to Brand’s 32 points, eight blocks and six boards exactly a year earlier.
The Clippers would beat the Knicks in this game, 90-80, thanks to a big different in true shooting percentages of 14 percentage points — a gap you could almost solely attribute to Brand. He shot 72 percent in this game, or 13-of-18 from the field, while not even attempting a field goal in the whole second quarter. He’d done enough in nearly the first half of the first quarter alone, scoring 15 points in the first seven minutes.
Video is scarce from this performance, but there is this trivia from the game, instead: This was the final NBA game played with its “new” synthetic ball that lasted less than half a season.
4. TRACY McGRADY, 2004
McGrady was in the middle of the most devastating stretch of his career when he scored 42 points and had 10 rebounds against the Bucks to close out 2004. The Rockets won, 105-90, even without Yao Ming because T-Mac poured it on (strangely, he didn’t have the highest offensive rating on his own team — Jon Barry was technically even better).
McGrady’s night wasn’t an evenly spaced masterpiece. He scored five points in the fourth quarter with the game out of reach, only shooting twice. In the second quarter, he took just three shots, making one. Another surprise was that we shouldn’t think he was an all-out gunner in this game, instead finishing with the second-highest assist percentage on his team by distributing the ball when he found himself covered.
3. QUENTIN RICHARDSON, 2003
Before Q bounced around to four more teams as a journeyman forward, he and Lamar Odom and Darius Miles were supposed to be doing what this current, 2012-13 Clippers team is doing, by running fast, jumping high and beating teams with superior athleticism. Well, by New Year’s Eve 2003 the other two were gone, and Q and Elton Brand were left to do what they could.
When he put it all together, Richardson could do a lot. This game showcased the best of Q, when he dropped 44 points and 10 rebounds in 38 minutes in a 120-104 win over Denver. He went outside, hitting 5-of-7 threes, and shot 57 percent overall. Unfortunately, this was the high-water mark of his career. He’d never have a better double-double, nor single-game for scoring.
No video remains from this game, so here’s a retro Nike ad with Miles and Richardson instead.
2. RUSSELL WESTBROOK, 2010
Before Oklahoma City made consecutive trips to the Western Conference finals, it was still a team picked to be on the rise specifically because of the kinds of games Kevin Durant and Westbrook could have. His NYE game against Atlanta was his third career triple double, with 23 points, 10 boards and 10 assists and shooting 9-of-22 (In Westbrook’s five triple-doubles, he’s shot better or tied his shooting from the field than in the previous game each time).
1. MICHAEL JORDAN, 2001
As it so often happens, Jordan can’t be beat. Against a very good Nets team that would make its first of two straight NBA Finals appearances six months after this game, Jordan had a field day as a 38-year-old with 45 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists. He scored 22 points in a row from 2 minutes left in the second quarter until almost 8 minutes remained in the third — and he only missed two shots in that entire stretch. To rack up those numbers, he made all but one of his 13 free throws and shot 50 percent from the field. Does it get any better than this? Of course not. It’s Jordan.
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