Welcome to NBA, Sundiata Gaines

SALT LAKE CITY — Sundiata Gaines' first morning as a celebrity was like all others, except the fact his image was still looping on ESPN from the previous night. And the fact his phone mail was jammed with what he described as "hundreds" of messages.

Then there was the cluster of reporters waiting for him at the Jazz's practice.

Twelve days ago, he was playing minor league ball in Boise. On Friday morning, he was a national story.

"I might have to change my (phone) number," Gaines said with a wide grin.

So here he is, 16 shots into his NBA career, and the kid named after a West African king has already made one of the memorable shots in Jazz history. You have John Stockton's buzzer-beater to send the Jazz to the 1997 NBA Finals. You have Jeff Malone's two free throws in triple-overtime to beat the Bulls, and Darrell's Griffith's late-scoring flurry against Dallas. Though not a last-second shot, Derek Fisher's dramatic 3-pointer in the 2007 playoffs against Golden State drew widespread publicity.

And you have Sundiata "Yada" Gaines, who came out of oblivion to upend the Eastern Conference-leading Cleveland Cavaliers late Thursday night.

"Some people perform under pressure, some don't," said Gaines. "But I love pressure."

There have actually been several other memorable shots in Jazz history; it's just that the Jazz were on the losing end. There were a few by Michael Jordan that beat the Jazz, most notably the final bucket of the 1998 NBA Finals. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar set the all-time NBA scoring record against the Jazz. Stockton's follow-up to Jordan's '98 basket skipped off the rim and into history.

All memorable shots of one kind or another.

So it was on Friday, Gaines showed up for practice as the interview du jour. It wasn't the first such shot he has ever made, just the most prominent. He made them in high school in New York, made them as a college player at the University of Georgia, made them in Europe, too.

"I've hit a lot of game-winners," he said, "because I have the ball in my hands a lot. But nothing compared to this."

This one happened not only before a packed house, but on national TV, too.

"I mean, that's big for me," he said.