Big shot elevates ‘Saint’ Augustin
Doubted point guard delivers careerdefining moment against Raptors.
TORONTO — After his home was ruined and his family uprooted as a teenager in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, D.J. Augustin learned that you better relish and appreciate every moment.
Maybe that’s why he so jubilantly thrust his right fist into the air and celebrated so passionately when he buried one of the most monumental shots in Orlando Magic history on Saturday night. It was a cold-blooded hot-diggity dagger that silenced a sold-out arena and elevated the Magic to a shocking 104-101 Game 1 upset of the heavily favored Toronto Raptors.
“Katrina was a long time ago, but it made me realize you can’t take anything in life for granted,” Augustin said Sunday. “You have to cherish every day and every opportunity, and I think that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life.”
If anybody deserves to savor Saturday’s career-defining moment, it is D.J. Augustin, who’s been doubted and disclaimed for years. He’s been on eight different
NBA teams and endured all the knocks and rocks hurled at him ever since he can remember. He’s too small. He’s too fragile. He’s too old. He’s not a legitimate starting point guard in the NBA.
Barely 6-foot and 180 pounds, the 31-year-old Augustin was considered a liability for the Magic and sat behind the mediocre Elfrid Payton for two seasons until Payton was traded to Phoenix for a bag of balls last year. Even coming into this season under new coach Steve Clifford, many of his critics considered Augustin just a journeyman stopgap until the
Magic could acquire somebody better.
“Honestly, I don’t listen to that kind of stuff and I never did,’’ a defiant Augustin says in reference to the cacophony of criticism he’s faced over the years. “I’ve been the same size since I was [young] and nobody expected me to be in the NBA and I’m going into my 12th year. I don’t listen to what the outside people say. I only care about my family, people close to me and my teammates. If they believe in me, and my coaches believed in me from the jump, that’s all I’ve needed.”
Now, it seems, Augustin has made believers of us all. Suddenly, after his audacious game-winner against the Raptors, he has been elevated to hero status by Magic fans who took to social media immediately after the game to pay tribute to their point guard.
One fan said Orlando should change its name to “Saint Augustin.” Another compared “D.J. Day” to World War II’s “V.J. Day.” Another immediately edited the top of Augustin’s Wikipedia page to say, “D.J. Augustin is a cold blooded killer, born in Lebronto, now the owner of the Toronto Raptors and an American professional dinosaur slayer for the Orlando Magic of the National Basketball Association.”
Others creatively compared Augustin’s 25-point night to that of Toronto’s all-star point guard Kyle Lowry, who was 0-for-7 and scored zero points for the Raptors in Game 1. One fan photo-shopped a picture of Augustin holding Lowry like a little baby. Somebody else tweeted out, “What’s the difference between Kyle Lowry and a toothpick? … A toothpick has two points.”
Isn’t it astounding what one game-winning shot in the postseason can do to change long-standing beliefs and perceptions about a player’s worth. Augustin, with one amazing shot, is now part of Magic playoff lore — right there with Rashard Lewis’s game-winners in the conference finals against LeBron and the Cavs; Hedo Turkoglu’s buzzer-beater in Game 4 against the Sixers; Nick Anderson’s steal against Michael Jordan in the conference semis.
Augustin’s shot was created because of his uncanny aptitude for dissecting defenses as a preeminent pick-and-roll point guard. As Nikola Vucevic set the pick for Augustin at the top of the key, D.J. readily recognized a defensive breakdown between Kawhi Leonard and center Marc Gasol.
“He so good at reading defenses,” Vucevic explains. “For a quick second, they both went with me.”
Said Augustin: “I knew they were going to switch, but I saw a little miscommunication. When I saw Marc back up a little bit, I knew there was no way he was going to be able to block my shot so I just pulled up and shot it with confidence.”
As the ball traversed through the air, there was no question in his coach’s mind that it was going in. Clifford is quick to point out that Augustin is one of the league’s best 3-point shooters off the dribble and has been for years.
“In terms of his ball handling and shooting, he has an exceptional, exceptional skill level even in this league,” Clifford says.
Augustin, too, was confident it was going in — so confident that he turned and started running back to the other end of the court.
“I knew it when I shot it,” he says.
Augustin says would have been ecstatic even if he had “banked it in,” but it surely makes even sweeter that the shot was so true, so impeccable, so perfect.
The net barely even moved as the ball knifed through.
It was the closest thing to #PureMagic we’ve ever seen. A moment to cherish. A moment to treasure. All of these years after Katrina, a moment to reflect and remember.
Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on Twitter @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. on FM 96.9 and AM 740.