The Longest Game-Winning Heave in the Annals of Professional Hoops

On November 13, 1967, about a month into the inaugural season of the American Basketball Association, Indiana Pacers guard nailed an 88-foot shot at the buzzer to wrench a 119-118 road victory away from the Dallas Chaparrals.

“Dallas’s Charles Beasley,” Harkness recalls, “hit a jumper to put them ahead by two points with two seconds left. We got the ball out under our basket and Oliver Darden threw it to me. I was not quite all the way in the corner, but I was on the baseline and behind the backboard, but just barely inbounds. Bob Netolicky was up the court and he was yelling at me to pass the ball to him. I knew I didn’t have time to do that. . . , so I sort of hooked it over my head. When I let the ball go, it just kept rising and the people were screaming. It was like everything was in slow motion. Then the ball went in and there was this total silence, except for my teammates, who mobbed me. “But they thought it was a 2-point basket, and we had overtime coming up. We were running off the floor to huddle up for the overtime when the official, Joe Belmont, came up to me and said, ‘Jerry, it's over. That was a 3-pointer.’ I said, ‘I forgot all about that” because the trifecta was still a novelty (having just been introduced by the ABA at the outset of that season). “Then we were celebrating again, because we found out that we won the game. The shot became known as the longest in basketball history. . . The irony is that I wasn't much of an outside shooter. In fact, that was the only 3-pointer I made that season!”

 According to Terry Pluto (see his captivating book Loose Balls), this feat was the first time that the ABA managed to attract significant national media coverage. The league’s logo was subsequently painted on the spot of the Texas floor from where the historic heave was launched. Much to the chagrin of hoop fans, there is no surviving footage of the shot, as the ABA was hard-pressed to attract television deals throughout its nine-year existence.

In the ensuing years, the distance of Harkness’ hail Mary has been reevaluated at 88 feet, accounting for the fact that the rim is situated 4 feet from the baseline. As a result, Baron Davis now holds the mark for the longest make (89 feet) in pro-basketball history. That said, no player has ever won a game from as far as the Pacer guard.  With the introduction of the NBA’s new “heave rule,” whereby players are not charged with a miss for field goal attempts over 36 feet from the hoop within the final three seconds, it seems like a matter of time before the two above-mentioned records are broken.