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The elusive buzzer-beater shot ranks among the most thrilling and memorable experiences for an NBA player.  Who hasn’t practiced the game-winning shot on their driveway?  In our fantasy, the shot always goes down; for players, it’s not so easy to connect under pressure.

On Saturday night, the league’s leading scorer, Kevin Durant, made his first game-winning shot with the Oklahoma City Thunder franchise, sealing a victory over the New York Knicks, 101-98.  With 1.5 seconds on the clock and a tied score, Durant nailed a 25-foot fadeaway from the right wing.  As he calmly walked toward his bench, breaking into a wide smile, his happy teammates ran onto the floor as the at-capacity crowd went positively wild.

"It was one of the all-time best feelings I’ve ever had so far in this league," Durant said in the locker room immediately following the game.

Durant has made only one other game-winning shot in the league.  It took place just a few weeks into his rookie year (with the Seattle Sonics franchise) amidst a broken play.  Clearly he sees this recent shot quite differently as it resulted from a play created by coach Scott Brooks expressly for him.

"I just pointed him (Brooks) on his back and looked at him and handed him the ball, and he knew what I was thinking," Durant explained to HOOPSWORLD.  "And he drew that play up for me."

"I’ll just tell you a little bit about KD," Brooks said.  "At that point, he was 10 of 24.  Most players would say ‘Man, I’m having a tough game, I don’t want to take the last shot’, but he wanted it.  He told me at the end of the time-out ‘Give me the ball.’

"Not that I wasn’t going to give him the ball," Brooks said chuckling.

"But he made a good play," continued Brooks.  "That was a tough shot.  That’s what winning basketball players do, make the right play.  And if he would have missed that shot, that would have been a shot I would have been happy with moving on to overtime."

"It looked short.  It looked short to me," Durant shared.  "I’m glad it went in.  I’ll take it.  Really, I didn’t know what to think.  I was just happy, of course, and I just saw my teammates run on the floor.  That’s probably the best feeling in the world."

His teammates were so excited running up to him after the shot, in fact, that they pushed the smiling Durant onto the floor.

The crowd was approaching near-hysteria after the shot, and after a quick confirmation check by the game officials, they roared even louder.  Durant relived the moment with us.

"Once I let it go, I felt everybody went silent.  Once it went in, I really couldn’t hear too much, I was just looking towards the bench.  Once I slapped back into it, I really heard the crowd."

{AUTHOR_BOX}As skilled as he is, Durant is not particularly known for his clutch shooting, but he remains unafraid to shoot the ball no matter the circumstances.

"He’s earned that opportunity to take that last shot," said Brooks.  "Like I tell him constantly, ‘Make the right play’, and tonight it was the right play. They had one single coverage on him with (Danilo) Gallinari, and he made the right play.  It was a tough shot, but I’m glad he made the shot.  Kevin’s about winning.  If they had double-teamed him, he would have made the right pass and we would have had another good look."

"You know I’ve missed so many of those, and then to finally make one of those, it feels good," said Durant earnestly.  "They actually played great defense.  They pushed me out further than I wanted to, but I was just shooting with a couple seconds left."

"Of course it’s gonna give me confidence, but it’s in the past now," he added.  "I can’t worry about it.  Hopefully if I get another opportunity like that, I’ll get close to the basket and I’ll make it."

Then with typical Durant-type modesty, mixed more and more lately with confidence and maturity, he revealed this: "I wasn’t ever gonna give up on myself, get down on myself, I just keep working at it.  I knew my time was gonna come."

Speaking of modesty, Durant said that it wasn’t just this last shot that won the game.  He talked about how the encouragement of his teammates was important.  And he specifically pointed toward a huge late block and overall great defense by Serge Ibaka (who set a career 15 rebounds in the game) as well as Russell Westbrook’s play as factors contributing to the win.

We asked Ibaka what he thought about Durant’s game-winning shot.

"That’s Kevin," he answered.  "He can do that.  You know, it’s no surprise for Kevin."

When we shared Durant’s declaration about that last play being one of the best feelings ever, Ibaka quietly said "Yeah, me too."

"I wanted to win the game in that last shot," Durant said plaintively.  "I asked coach for it.  He drew it up for me, and the rest is history."

We suspect many more game-winning shots will be included in his resume’ before it’s said and done.