CLEVELAND, Ohio - A shooter wins fans' hearts and bends their minds when he's hot. Heat check hot. En fuego caliente (On fire hot). Heat-strokin' hot. In the zone hot. In more rhythm than a Gershwin tune hot.
But what about when the shooter is cold and is a misser?
Bad start for Threezus
What if, with the season of the shooter's team not quite on the line, but just a toenail from it, he started miss, miss, miss, miss, miss?
That was five shots by sharpshooter Kyle Korver with nothing to show for them in Sunday night's tense, series-evening 104-100 Cleveland Cavaliers victory at the Indiana Pacers. It sets up a pivotal fifth game at The Q on Wednesday night.
Why was this man optimistic?
One of Korver's nicknames is "Threezus," which is not meant to be blasphemous. Blasphemy for a shooter is to pass up open shots.
Although Korver was missing the corner three, the shortest and easiest of the arc balls, a shooter must keep firing away. He must be an eternal optimist, sure the next one will go in.
In his career, Korver has taken more than 60 percent of his field goal attempts from behind the 3-point arc. He has played more than 1,100 games and made more than 2,200 threes. He makes them at a 43 percent clip. Thirty-three percent is adequate. His makes have traveled far enough to earn frequent flyer upgrades.
Changing the game
LeBron James calls Korver the team's "Game Changer."
And with two flicks of his wrist Sunday, he did just that.
Just when it seemed that the Cavs -- who had lost after wasting a 17-point lead in the third game Friday night and who almost lost an 18-point lead in Game 2 -- would lose the fourth after wasting a 16-point lead, Korver made a 23-footer near the top of the arc for a 94-93 lead with 3:48 to play.
After James and the Pacers' Victor Oladipo exchanged baskets, it was 96-95, Cavaliers. Korver launched another from 28 feet with 2:29 left. It was good, as the late Howie Chizek used to howl at old Richfield Coliseum when World B. Free splashed one, "For tha-ree!"
The Pacers trailed, 99-95, and never got closer than three points after that.
Those were the only shots Korver took in the fourth quarter.
For just such endgame moments, Fred McLeod, the Cavs' television play-by-play man, has dubbed him "Fourth Korver."
Amnesia and memory
The second three was not an example of "muscle memory," for all that some say that. Muscles have no memories. Probably, like the first one, it resulted from the "instant amnesia" athletes have to have, forgetting about their failures and moving on to the next play.
Still, as in Game 2, when Korver's four treys on eight tries helped the Cavs hold off Indiana, the Game 4 win might have meant more than other playoff victories.
"I definitely feel guys were pulling for me and waiting for me to make one," Korver said.
It has been a difficult season for Korver, one marred by injuries and forever scarred by the death of his younger brother in the latter stages of the regular season. Korver wants to re-pay with his performance the kindness the organization showed him after his loss.
"Did you ever hear of any organization giving you more than a week off to grieve?" he said recently.
At his brother Kirk's funeral, Kyle stood with his two surviving brothers and solemnly told their parents, "You will always have four sons."
Some memories you keep, on and off the court.
Fourth Korver indeed.