Andre Drummond pulled off a move so bad you could only do it in a video game

The Cleveland Cavaliers’ game against the Memphis Grizzlies on Thursday was destined to be forgotten. Cleveland was missing its starting backcourt of Collin Sexton and Darius Garland, as well as Dante Exum, Kevin Love, Kevin Porter Jr, Dylan Windler and Matthew Dellavedova. The Grizzlies had neither Jaren Jackson Jr. nor Ja Morant. It wasn’t a preview of the NBA Finals.

Thanks to André Drummond for still finding a way to make the game memorable, if only for some dubious reason. In the fourth quarter, with Cleveland trailing by one point, Drummond elbowed the ball and watched the defense.

He waited. And I waited. And I waited. Eventually he tried to throw a … backhand (?) Layup that flew over his head rather than towards the basket. You just have to watch it for yourself:

This is art. Sick and crooked art. Here’s how it was credited on the play log:

You can’t entirely blame Drummond: two of his Cavs teammates came around a screen at exactly the same time, in exactly the same place, which made Drummond difficult to read. So he sort of stayed there until the shot clock ran out when he had to throw Something to the top.

It was a turnover, yes, but it was so much more than that. Considering how amazing the NBA players are at their jobs, this is a truly mind-blowing streak.

The Cavs would win, 94-90, to continue their surprising start to the season at 5-4. Drummond finished with a high of 22 points and 14 rebounds. He also had six turnovers, none of them more glorious than this one.

I will steal a line of my colleague Seth: “It’s as if he had put the joystick down to respond to a text, then picked it up with his fingers on the wrong buttons.”

That sums it up perfectly. Looks like Jon Bois’s NBA Y2K dream is coming to life. If Griz-Cavs was going to be forgotten forever anyway, at least we have it.