Basketball On The Internet.

WE'VE all seen them - the miracle shots that win games and lift us out of our seats with exultation, and the pure unadulterated bliss of witnessing the divine in sport. They've been around since James Naismith nailed up the peach baskets, but in NBL history, none rival Jack McVeigh's Sunday special.

There's a reason I've unabashedly and unequivocally declared it as the "Greatest Shot in NBL History," with none of the usual soft-soap qualifying "arguably the greatest" but definitively as "The Greatest."

Why?

It's simple, actually.

We all have memories of some of those amazing match-winners across the ages. Leroy Loggins hit so many, isolating one as the best is near impossible. Robert Rose with Townsville hitting the three to beat Sydney in that classic 2001 regular season clash. Anthony Stewart for Cairns burying Adelaide from the corner in a KO final.

I'm sure you have a few you can recall from the history of the team or teams you follow.

Then there's just the great amazing shots such as Torrey Craig catching a ball in mid-air at midcourt and flinging it in for Cairns. Or Nigel Purchase for Melbourne Tigers running down a ball at the sideline and back-flicking it - nothing but net.

There's been so many remarkable great shots - CJ Bruton in his NBL debut for Perth flinging in a ripper "from the carpark" against North Melbourne - and a myriad of big shots in-game that have determined momentums and outcomes. Let's not even start on the dunks.

But there is no shot bigger than the one which wins a Grand Final. When you're still a kid, shooting in your backyard, in the driveway or at the park, hitting the winning shot in a Grand Final is the one which captures your imagination.

So there's my first criteria for "The Greatest Ever NBL Shot" - it clinched a Grand Final. There's no more important shot.   

We have enjoyed six massive Grand Final shots that I can recall - email me if you can think of any others I can add to the list.

The first was Peter Vitols for St Kilda in the NBL's very first one-and-done Grand Final in 1979. Cutting baseline, he took a sweet threaded pass from Robbie Cadee and reverse laid in the winning basket 94-93 over Canberra Cannons.

It won a Grand Final, the first. It was a great bucket under pressure so attracts all appropriate accolades. But it's degree of difficulty was low. There was probably not a player from either team who could not have converted that opportunity.

Vitols did, and all kudos to him. (Not sure he's ever mentioned it in the 45 intervening years.)

The second was from Darryl "D-Mac" McDonald for North Melbourne Giants to win Game 1 - which already was in overtime - in its best-of-three Grand Final Series with the 36ers in Adelaide.

D-Mac had the ball in his hands, allowed the clock to run down, then made his move toward the hoop, pulling up to nail a mid-range jumpshot for a 95-93 win.

Again, not in any way endeavouring to diminish that epic moment but the score was 93-93 when he shot it, so he had the safety-net of overtime if he missed. And in the end, it was a regulation jumper.

The third came in the first classic New Zealand-Cairns Grand Final best-of-three series in 2011. Game 2 already had gone to overtime and even the extension was almost over, the Breakers 73-70 ahead when Ron Dorsey worked his way up the floor and pulled out a long 3-point bomb.

OK. Technically it did not win a Grand Final but it sent the match into the NBL's historic first (and probably still only) double-overtime Grand Final and the Taipans then won it to send the series to a decider in Auckland.

Amazingly, the fourth massive Grand Final winner also was in a New Zealand-Cairns series, Game 2 in Auckland in 2015 where Ekene Ibekwe took a pass, turned and hit a mid-range jumpshot.

The siren was sounding as it sailed through, the Breakers winning 83-81. Again, a massive shot but still only a mid-range regulation jumper with the scores tied 81-81 and, like D-Mac 21 years earlier, with an overtime safety-net if it missed.

The fifth involves Tasmania's JackJumpers and their colossal performance in 2022 to reach the Grand Finals in the expansion club's first season.

Cruelled by injuries, they still produced a massive Game 2 performance and trailed 86-87 inside the final 10 seconds.

That was when Dejan Vasiljevic rolled into a long 3-point bomb that swished for an unassailable 90-86 lead that decided Game 2, and probably the series.

These were all great and forever memorable Grand Final shots.

But what Jack McVeigh did yesterday tops them all because it wins the second major criteria - degree of difficulty.

To catch the ball off a Milton Doyle save from over the baseline, dribble six times to get to a shooting spot just north of the halfway line and let it sail over the defender's outstretched hands reminded us all what makes sport so rivetting and compelling.

The fact McVeigh, on instinct, knew exactly what needed to be done, then executed it to such focused perfection, charges up the emotions beyond belief.

Yes, he hit a match-winner during the season against Cairns and that one goes into the annals along with a thousand other great NBL shots.

But yesterday's shot? That was the Greatest Shot in the History of the NBL.

Take a bow Jack.