Robert Horry was all set to cut through the lane after inbounding the ball with 9.6 seconds left when a strange thing happened -- extremely strange, actually, considering his postseason history.
Rasheed Wallace suddenly went to double-team Manu Ginobili in the corner, leaving no one within 15 feet of one of the best clutch shooters in NBA postseason history.
Bad idea. Very bad.
"I saw Rasheed bite and said: `Oh, let me stay out here,'" Horry said after he knocked down a wide-open 3-pointer with 5.8 seconds remaining in overtime Sunday to give San Antonio a 96-95 victory over Detroit in Game 5 of the NBA Finals.
Horry, the veteran dubbed "Big Shot Bob" whose clutch postseason 3-pointers have defined his career, gave the Spurs a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series. San Antonio bounced back from a pair of lopsided losses to defeat the defending champs in their own building and send the series back to Texas needing just one more victory for a third title in seven years.
"The play was for me to take that shot, but then I saw Rasheed coming," Ginobili said "My first option in those moments was Robert. He's a winner. He's been in that situation so many times. Everyone knows what he does."
The Pistons had one final chance after Horry's shot, but Richard Hamilton missed a runner from the lane and Bruce Bowen rebounded to end it.
After four blowouts, this was the type of game everyone had been waiting almost two weeks to see -- an intense, closely-fought nail-biter befitting of a championship series. The fourth quarter was close throughout, with clutch shots coming from Chauncey Billups and Hamilton for the Pistons, and Horry and Ginobili of San Antonio.
The player who wasn't hitting the big ones was two-time NBA Finals MVP Tim Duncan, who missed six straight foul shots and a putback at the end of the fourth quarter that would have won it for the Spurs.
"An absolute nightmare, yes," Duncan said. "[Horry] pulled me out of an incredible hole that I put myself in."
Game 6 will be Tuesday, and Game 7, if necessary, on Thursday.
The Pistons haven't won in San Antonio since 1997, and the Spurs had the NBA's best regular-season home record.
Horry finished with 21 points, Duncan had 26 points and 19 rebounds, Ginobili scored 15 and Tony Parker 14. Billups led Detroit with 34 points.
"It was the kind of game where you hate to see anybody lose," Pistons coach Larry Brown said.
Of the prior 23 times a finals series has been tied 2-2, the Game 5 winner has gone on to win the title 17 times. The most recent time it has happened was 2003, when San Antonio defeated New Jersey. A Game 5 loser won following a 2-2 tie most recently in 1994, when the Houston Rockets defeated the New York Knicks in Games 6 and 7.
Duncan also missed San Antonio's first two shots of overtime and lost control of an entry pass with 56 seconds left in the extra period with Detroit ahead 95-93.
An offensive rebound gave Detroit two possessions while running down the final minute of overtime, but Billups missed on a drive with 9.4 seconds remaining. After a timeout, Horry knocked down the 3 that won it.
"You can't go back and say shoulda, woulda, coulda. It was caught in the corner and I just tried to double. Now we have a day and a half. We're cool," Wallace said.
The late 3 wasn't the only big shot by Horry, whose offensive poise was a direct contrast to Duncan's troubles.
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