After beating Finland with a last-second basket, our latest victim Australia couldn’t escape us either. Last seconds again, Turkey again. Our teams really love the last moments and reserve the right to have the last word for themselves. There have been so many late-second comebacks recently that you start to wonder. I don’t believe in coincidence, so let’s call it fate or providence. I keep thinking: how does keeping it that close, all the way to the last second, affect us — or specifically, me? Honestly, in the Dominican Republic game we built a 15–20 point lead and held it the whole way. Was it nice? Of course it was, we were ahead, it was going to be nice. But here’s the thing: winning that way doesn’t have the same euphoria as winning at the buzzer. Hitting a last-second basket and winning is its own kind of experience — you can’t sit still. They don’t leave you any heart at all. Right now I’m thinking about the US basketball team. Their fans, knowing they’ll win, don’t even put on a big show of excitement. Sure, it’d be nice if we were in that position too, winning every game — that’s a separate topic. But these last seconds pump me full of adrenaline. For example, I rewatch the last minutes of a buzzer-beater win 5–10 times, but I watched the highlights of the Dominican Republic game just once. Winning like this fires you up more, I guess. I don’t know.

Also, there’s a tweet I saw on Twitter that I really liked. Let me share it with you:

The Moment When 9 Was Greater Than 10! — Emir!! pic.twitter.com/aObcUXJcDr— National Geographic (@birdahabak) September 7, 2014

Below, I’ll add videos of the buzzer-beater games I can remember. Enjoy.