NBA: Torrey Craig blocks the possible winner of the game in his first race:”Surreal”.

The Denver Nuggets beat the New Orleans Pelicans with 117:111 after extra time. Hero of the evening was Torry Craig, who, at the age of 26, blocked the potential game winner in his second NBA match. 24 hours earlier, the rookie was not even with the team, but in a small hotel in a nest in Wisconsin.

“Just surreal”, Craig stammered into the microphones after the game – and that hit the nail on the head. In his second game (first start) in the NBA, Nuggets coach Mike Malone’s 26-year-old was replaced for the last possession of the ball in regular time and defended himself isolated against Jrue Holiday (formerly 25 points) at 104:104. The Pelicans-Guard could not create a reasonable throw and was even blocked.

Previously, Craig had only won six minutes in a memorable blowout defeat against Utah Jazz (77:106) and was only once again in the Colorado franchise’s line-up. The rookie must have been all the more surprised when he received a call late on Thursday evening to join the nuggets team. Craig was in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in the far north of the United States, where his G-League team, Sioux Falls Skyforce, were due to play the next day.

So in the middle of the night Craig grabbed an over to get to the airport. Right on time for the shootaround, he signed up for duty in Denver and soon afterwards learned that Malone had scheduled him for the Starting Five. 18 minutes were finally spent on Craig, in which he played 6 points, 4 rebounds and 2 blocks.

Surprisingly, he was also allowed to play in the crunchtime and should defend without Scouting Report Jrue Holiday, who dribbled down the shot clock at 18.6 seconds on the clock to take advantage of the apparently good matchup against the inexperienced rookie.

“I simply tried to use my length and make the throw as difficult as possible for him,”Craig explained his strategy. More than that. Holiday tried to get rid of the rookie with a pump fake, but he didn’t let himself be fooled or jump. When Holiday really went up to the throw, Craig actually got his fingertips on the spalding. Overtime.

There Will Barton took over with eleven points and bagged the 16th place. Season’s victory, but the story of the day was of course Craig and so half the league wondered,”Who the hell is this?”

In 2014, he still remained unnoticed in the draft. Not surprisingly, he played for the USC Upstate Spartans in South Carolina, who played at the small Atlantic Sun Conference and had previously only brought out one NBA player – a certain Mike Gibson, who played 64 games for the Washington Bullets and Detroit pistons in the eighties.

So since the scouts in the small G. B. Hodge Center (capacity: 818), Craig had to go another way. He made a name for himself in Australia and New Zealand and was voted defensive player of the year in the Australian league last season.

The nuggets became so attentive and tried out the guard in the Summer League. Craig convinced himself and won one of the two new two-way contracts each team has had since this season. Of course, this meant that Craig would spend most of his time with the G-League team, but Denver has the option of pulling the player up to the NBA team for up to 45 days.

The nuggets did this that night, partly because Denver is thinly occupied by the injuries of Juancho Hernangomez or Paul Millsap in the forward positions. Craig has hung up about 25 points per game in the G-League so far, but Malone caught up with the Guard he had learnt, mainly because of his strong defences. It was well known that it paid off and the other players played hymns of praise on the 26-year-old.

“He made the best stop in the game,”said a delighted Nikola Jokic, who was injured after seven games and scored a double in 22 minutes,”He gave us the chance to win this game,” Barton agreed with the Serbian and said he had confidence in the rookie.

“He was thrown into the fire and stopped the player who had previously been hot all over the game,”Barton continued,”that was very important to our morale and I’m especially pleased for him.”

That’s what happened to the celebrated man himself. In his time in Australia, great victories were mostly celebrated with beer or champagne, consumed from shoes. When the question came up as to whether he would continue this tradition in Denver, Craig asked in the round:”May I do that?”

Later on he admitted not to have done it, even if no one would have resented him. With this incredible story, he definitely deserved it.