By the fourth quarter on Tuesday night, Manu Ginobili was a 40-year-old Argentine rock star gyrating on stage at Madison Square Garden.
He had injected life into a moribund San Antonio Spurs offense with his constant, if inelegant, motion. In one display of unorthodoxy that was extravagant even for him, he aimed a lob pass to LaMarcus Aldridge from 23 feet and watched it drop through the hoop.
“It went so clean that nobody saw it,” the still Jack-be-nimble Ginobili said of how all three officials initially thought the ball had hit the net, not gone through it, before awarding him a 3-pointer.