On the Demise of "the Streak" and the San Antonio Spurs
Here's the run, in my eyes. On game nights, I felt that I was vicariously solving some great problem through my Spurs. Every night, they solved some advanced geometry problem with methods the world has never seen. In the mornings, I'd get the glorious feeling of stillness and placidity that accompanies triumph. My favorite team has been fun, likable, and virtuous, at least in my view. I've been quite pleased with what this team has offered up in the previous 20 games. I don't know if any fan of the sport wouldn't be pleased with a run like this.
It probably helps that at the same time this was going on I - a mostly sedentary individual that has always seemed just a bit depressed and cynical and vaguely way-too-reserved - lost something like 25 pounds during the winning streak and developed hitherto unexplored levels of maturity and self-confidence, as well as the vague overtones of a workout routine. The Spurs have reinvented basketball less than I've reinvented my life, and that might not be obvious just talking to me. This blog is as successful as it has ever been, which probably has at least something to do with my editorial mind being as sharp and direct as ever. And I know as much as I ever have about basketball, because for me every other night has been a clinic in the sport, not just as it is today but as it shall be 5 years hence in some optimal future. Most of all, I finally have some mental picture of the end, the culmination, of all my recent work and struggles.
The timing is coincidental, of course. But it's also uncanny: I can't deny that the streak probably helped.
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Or maybe it hasn't helped at all. Perhaps it was a prelude to darkness.
Perhaps the Spurs are just building up my confidence only to unkindly tear it away in the span of one defining week, succumbing to a collapse previously unseen in basketball history. The Thunder are a great team, and last night they found another gear. The tenacity we saw last night retroactively justifies every "promising young team" label previously affixed to them. Maybe the Spurs shall lose, and I with them, these present delusions of efficiency differential and emotional honesty to be unkindly discarded into a bin of reminiscence labeled "Worst Possible Match-Up, or that's what you can tell yourself" on the fringe of the quicksand pit.
But you know what? Although it may not last, I'll always remember Tim Duncan quietly rising up the blocks list. Loudly punctuating the blocks with vision and spryness in his forays to the rim, forays that we'd thought had left this land. There's some magic still, in that old knee brace.
Although it may not last, I'll always remember Manu finding the exact moment of leverage when his team needed a throwback. On the margin, a crucial defeat averted. His hammering -- constant, pounding -- of that margin with the precision of a sculptor.
Although it may not last, I'll always remember Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard -- players inexplicably discarded by the decision-makers of the league until the interest of the Spurs -- burying the Jazz almost singlehandedly in a 20-0 run as their battle-tested brothers in arms watched with glee.
This team is not forever, yet. After all, last night hinted at a dark possibility. They can be, but they aren't yet there. This team is mortal -- they bleed, too. To make presumptions, as a fan, is to be taken by surprised and bleed right with them. But even as they lie, bleeding in the corner like a boxer who wasn't expecting the perfect counter, I can't focus on that right now. I can only focus on what I know, and the things about this team I know I'll never forget. Tiago taking over the fourth, the senseless carving-up of the weaker teams (28 in total), the faint praise for Richard Jefferson, the backhanded compliments everyone gave Stephen Jackson, the passing and drives of Boris Diaw, the ridiculous enthusiasm of Patty Mills, Matt Bonner receiving a transdimensional warning from 45 light-years away and calling up to the president without hesitation, Gary Neal's limited handle and limitless self-confidence. S-Jax - swiftly upon return - guarding Dirk as it was written and as it shall be done.
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