My favorite Columbia River little big play tonight 1/15

Note: My continuing series of notes, trying to pick an interesting play from a basketball game that was not necessarily a game-deciding play.

From Bolds to the Backboard: This is tough to come up with my favorite play or sequence. The Chieftains rolled past the Mountain View Thunder 69-51 Tuesday night, earning a two-game lead with four to play in the 3A GSHL.

I was going to go with a couple of half-court plays that came a couple minutes apart in the third quarter.

Columbia River’s Devin Bolds always looks cool and in control. Like, no worries, he’s got this. He might have the ball on one side of the offense, above the 3-point circle, and the look on his face makes it seem like he’s just playing catch in warm-ups.

But really, he is just waiting for the right moment. And, there it is! With a flick of his wrists, he sends a cross-court pass over the defense to find the open shooter.

He found Bryan Wyche for a 3-pointer early in the third quarter, giving River a 35-24 lead. A couple minutes later, with the Thunder again within eight, Bolds did it again. Looking nonchalant, his skip pass went to Nathan Hawthorne, who drained a 3-pointer to push the lead back to 11.

So that was going to be the sequence I was going to write about for this blog entry. But now I can’t. Because Torey Jones and Isaiah Smith did something to bring back 1950s/60s basketball.

It was so awesome, I heard someone behind me cry out “What was that?” as if Jones had done something wrong. Like he screwed up so bad with his shot and Smith just bailed him out with a rebound and a putback.

But no. Jones did not screw up. He did exactly what he was trying to do.

So what was it?

A backboard pass.

A what?

A backboard pass.

Jones got the ball near the free throw line and looked like he was going to shoot. Smith, the 6-8 post, got inside position, and blocked out his defender in what appeared to be an attempt to rebound any miss.

But Jones passed the ball over everybody’s head, getting the ball to hit the backboard and fall right into Smith’s hands, who then converted an easy lay-up.

A backboard pass. Perfected. In 2013.

It made me so giddy I forgot all about all those great assists by Devin Bolds.

Way to go Torey. The Pass of the Night.

(Devin still gets the Passes of the Night award, though.)