The Hammer Nails It Down for the Bruins

Watching the anonymous mass of elbows and floor burns that is the UCLA basketball team, folks have waxed about their togetherness and welcomed their humility.

But also, lately, in the privacy of their deepest blue memories, folks have wondered.

If the Bruins needed a game-winning shot, who would take it?

If the Bruins needed a game-saving play, who would make it?

Teams win championships, but individuals win hair-yanking, heart-grabbing NCAA tournament games, and did these Bruins have a player willing to strap on an ego and go Tyus on somebody?

On an eighty-eight clap of a Saturday, there emerged a three-word answer.

Do they ever.

It’s the guy whose gentle face becomes a fist, the guy whose soft words become a scream, the guy who isn’t afraid to scowl at his coach and glare at his man and grab the ball with the season dripping from its seams.

It’s No. 4. Their cleanup hitter. The hammer named Arron.

“I have to have an impact on the game,” Arron Afflalo admitted. “If my impact isn’t felt on a game, we’re probably not going to win.”

In the final moments of what could have been the Bruins final game Saturday, it felt, twice, more like a boxing combination than basketball play, a slap to the head, then a punch to the belt.

It was felt here to Lavin, from Alabama to Oakland, from a nasty :35 to the Sweet 16.

“I love Arron Afflalo,” said Coach Ben Howland. “I literally love him.”

Those swaying, singing Bruin fans who filled Cox Arena agreed after Afflalo hit the game-clinching three-pointer, then made the game-ending stop to give the Bruins a 62-59 victory over Alabama in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

All this, even though he didn’t score in the first half, didn’t even take a shot in the game’s first dozen minutes.

“Horrendous,” Afflalo said.

All this, even though midway through the second half, moments after he hit a three-pointer and finally seemed to find his groove, he was sent to the bench in another of Howland’s maddening substitution patterns.

He slammed his rear end down in the chair and shouted, “Why am I out?”

Assistant Donny Daniels assured him he would soon return.

Less than two game minutes later, he did.

Said Afflalo: “I had been terrible, I finally feel like I’ve got my rhythm, and I did not want to come out.”

Said Howland: “He is always mad when he comes out. But how many minutes did he play? Yeah, he played only 36 minutes.”

Turns out, the final 35 seconds were all that mattered.

The Bruins led by one with the ball, but it felt like they trailed by two and were against the wall.

Jordan Farmar had four fouls and two sore wrists. Ryan Hollins had four fouls and two huge Alabama bodies pushing him.

Luc Richard Mbah a Moute was too young. Cedric Bozeman was a second option.

It was up to Afflalo, who has embraced the Howland method, and who would rather run laps than talk smack, and who is careful never to put himself ahead of his teammates, but ...

“I have no problem taking The Shot,” he said.

So Howland called for a double screen that wound up with Afflalo holding the ball just beyond the three-point line with only a couple of seconds left on the shot clock, and Alabama gave him room because they thought he would drive.

Said Howland: “A big mistake, because this guy is a shooter.”

Said Afflalo: “I blanked it all out. I zoned it all out. I just shot.”

After the ball dropped, the face became a fist and the hands were waving and all kinds of things were spewing from his mouth as he shouted at his teammates to climb on his back.

“I have no idea what I was saying,” he said. “Those weren’t words, they were adrenaline. A whole bunch of nothing.”

Whatever it was, it hung in the air until Alabama guard Ronald Steele had the ball in the final seconds with the Crimson Tide trailing by two and the rest of his teammates having cleared away.

It was Alabama’s leading scorer going one-on-one with UCLA’s best defender.

Once again, Hammer Time.

“Arron Afflalo plays good defense,” Steele explained later. “He cut me off my initial move, but I was still able to get free. I thought I had a good look when it left my hand, but it came up just a little short.”

Translated? Airball. Game. Gonzaga next. Watch your mustache, Mr. Morrison.

“That’s what makes basketball so fun and entertaining,” Afflalo said with a smile.

It was a half hour later, and that gentle face was back, the sophomore refusing to act like the hero he had just embodied.

He said he was “immature” for being so disappointed that he didn’t score in the first half.

He said that because he’s “still a little young,” he still would rather shoot than play defense.

He said, again and again, “It’s not about me, it’s about the team.”

Usually he’s right.

But for a few precious moments on this most special of nights, it had to be about one person, and, deftly playing a question mark into an exclamation point, Arron Afflalo decided it would be him.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.