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Grant Hill Responds as 1-Man Rescue Squad

MINNEAPOLIS, APRIL 6 -- Maybe Grant Hill should run for president. He does everything so well in such a quiet, unassuming way. He's smart and elegant. He has the poise and bearing of a person well beyond his 19 years and 153 days. And he sure can play basketball.

In the most important game of the year, as his more celebrated Duke teammates played a first half with about as much energy as jellyfish, the 6-foot-8 sophomore from Reston, Va., emerged from his role as underling and became the season-ending savior.

While senior center Christian Laettner fumbled and stumbled through the first half and guard Bobby Hurley stayed cold from the outside, Hill scored, rebounded, defended, and ultimately resuscitated a team that was about to have its No. 1 ranking snatched out from under it in the NCAA championship game.

Here are Hill's totals: 18 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, 2 blocks.

Hey, someone had to approach perfection.

That's why Hill, wearing a white baseball cap with blue letters that said "Back to Back" was the one who was hoisted aloft to cut down the net at the end of the game.

"I really think Grant's penetration was the key to the game," Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "Grant created some things for us."

First came a perfectly timed tip-in off Laettner's missed bank shot with 4:16 left in the half. Hill followed immediately with two back-to-back drives along the baseline, bringing Duke to within one point late in the first half. Not just ordinary drives. Breathtaking, graceful maneuvers around the likes of Michigan's 6-9 Chris Webber and 6-8 Jalen Rose. Twisting moves that ended with Hill's palm rolling the ball off his fingertips into the net. In the basketball jargon of Michigan Coach Steve Fisher, Hill is "an excellent dribble-driver and a slasher." Translation: He wreaked havoc on Michigan.

"Grant Hill creates problems for everybody because he is so quick, so athletic, so intelligent," Fisher said.

Part of what Hill does, and did so well tonight, were subtle shifts and movements into the lane that eventually helped free Laettner. With Hill driving in, Laettner was able to shed one of the two Wolverines swarming over him. Hill could pass back to Laettner, or keep the ball and take it in himself.

Hill seemed an unlikely candidate for hero status before the game. He had been injured earlier in the season and suffered another minor injury in Saturday's semifinal against Indiana. "He was pretty banged up," Krzyzewski said.

So was co-captain Brian Davis, whose situation was uncertain because of an ankle sprain. It wasn't until 10 minutes into the Duke warmup that Davis lamely jogged onto the court, his left ankle taped part way up his leg.

Then there was Laettner, whose motor control seemed to be on the blink for 20 solid minutes -- the entire first half. The 6-11 senior committed seven turnovers, shot 20 percent and looked utterly lifeless as he was manhandled by the Wolverines. Hurley, who came to the rescue Saturday with a 26-point performance, couldn't connect on anything and ended the game shooting three for 12.

Enter Grant Hill. In Hill's view, his game-saving performance was kind of ho-hum, but that's because he's a ho-hum kind of guy. "In the first half I just tried to drive in," Hill said. "I just went in for the layups and they were pretty easy. I took what the defense gave me."

Surrounded by the mountainous ego of Laettner, Hill's modesty is almost startling. He went for the layups, he said, because: "I felt I had to do something. Sometimes I got the ball and I just wanted to make something happen."

Although one would never know it from his outward demeanor, twice, Hill said, he was mad at himself for committing turnovers and decided he needed to atone for his mistakes. "I got on myself," he said of a tentative missed layup. "I felt I had to take it to them and not be scared."

Toward the end of the game Hill broke free at midcourt and drove over Webber for a mesmerizing dunk. "I tried to add something to it," Hill confessed with a smile, slightly embarrassed to admit he would succumb to showmanship.

Still, he is too modest, too humble to think he deserved credit for rescuing the team. "All year long when Christian is not having a Christian-like game, other players have stepped up," Hill said. "It's been anybody, not just myself."

Perhaps because Hill is so unwilling to congratulate himself, someone else was left to do it for him. Hurley, named outstanding player of the tournament, was asked how he felt about receiving the award. "It could just as easily have gone to Grant," he said.