I’ve never been much for horror films.
Sure, I’ve always been fascinated by the destabilizing and open-ended duality of The Shining (Stephen King owes Kubrick a debt for improving on the book, the ungrateful wretch), or the bizarro excesses of a young Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive, and though I have enjoyed the return of more psychological horror over the past decade, by-and-large it’s a genre I don’t engage with much.
Most perplexing to me is the popularity of horror films that rely on the jump scare.
The jump scare is a time-honored convention at this point in the genre, but there’s a very fine line between using it as an intelligently startling punctuation, and having it function as the only real draw/form of stimulation.
Personally, I adjust to over-stimulation far too quickly for these kinds of films to be very effective. As a younger man, drinking began to lose the appeal once I needed to imbibe larger and larger quantities of alcohol, even as the effect lessened.
Now, in the relative sobriety of middle-age, I find that one or two drinks can really do the trick. The same feels true for the jump scare. Too many, and I begin to lose interest. I find an extended section of growing unease to be far more effective.
Why is probably why I spent most of my weekend dreading the thought of having to write about Game 3.
Unlike the previous series against the Thunder, there haven’t been any blowouts. Losing feels bad, but in a blowout at least it goes quickly. You lose your attachment to the game pretty quickly when you’re down 20+ in the fourth quarter. It almost seems like it hurts less, or at the very least, allows you to pull the chute earlier.
Each Finals game has felt like base-jumping into the Overlook Hotel. The endless seesawing of the score starts to play tricks on your mind. How many times have the Spurs had the lead? Have they actually ever really had the lead? I could have sworn they were up by 8. Or 10. Or 6. Wait…they’re tied??
The margin starts to feel as inflationary as our national currency (or gas prices), and everything seem relative. What even is a lead? Five points ahead is basically a tie at this point. It’s all a fugazi. It’s fairy dust. Even worse, the games were starting to give me a feeling that the only slasher franchise I’ve ever regularly engaged with gives me.
Anytime something important needed to happen, the Knicks seemed to hit any and every shot in spite of the odds.
A long-distance prayer at the end of the shot clock?
They’re going to make it.
The perfect pass out of a near-perfect defensive rotation?
They’re gonna find it.
A critical rebound that mutiple Spurs are in position for, and have hands on?
They’re gonna come down with it.
It was starting to feel like the Spurs, no matter how vigilant, how disciplined, how aware, were being thwarted by fate itself. Like they were driving behind a log truck that was about randomly lose its load and annihilate everything behind it, and I was constantly in a state of having a premonition about it, only for something just as bad (or worse) to happen instead.
And in the second quarter of Game 3, the Final Destination vibes started to kick in again.
The Spurs were amazing for the first ten-or-so minutes of the 1st quarter, before the Knicks caught back up with the highest-scoring quarter of the series for either team.
New York hit 6 of their 13 threes in that quarter. They went 13/16 from the field as a whole. Everything was going in. Perfectly contested shots. Leaning shots off one leg. Shots majestically arcing over Wemby’s Lovecraftian reach. (Brunson in particular seems to have mastered this) Shots with seemingly no arc at all.
They went 8 for 8 from the free-throw line, and they didn’t even seem to need it.
The Spurs had been up by 12 at the start of the 2nd. Now they were down by 7 going into the half. Intellectually I knew that 7 points wasn’t much, but I was starting to feel like the Spurs were up against something supernatural.
Had James Dolan finally given in and sold his soul to dark forces? Was Adam Silver the demiurge? Were the current Knicks being possessed by the ghosts of Willis Reed, and Dick Barnett, and Dave DeBusschere?
Were the Spurs strapped to an out-of-control roller-coaster, or was it all in my head?
And so it continued. The Spurs would claw out a lead. The Knicks would then make impossible plays and shots and/or the Spurs would slip up in unusual ways. And even though they only ended up with eight turnovers, it felt like every pass from San Antonio was either reckless or hazarded by their opponents, to the point that I thought it might be giving me heart palpitations or angina.
If this had been a bog-standard slasher film, I’d have adjusted to it by then, but as in the case of Final Destination, it was the sheer improbability and unpredictability (or false certainty) that was keeping my blood pumping.
I was either standing or pacing for most of the fourth quarter, my daughter tucked in on the couch, a serene and innocently slumbering opposite. I couldn’t carry her to her room in the middle of that madness! Who knows what might have happened?!
I had honored my contractual agreement for pre-bedtime cuddles. What my daughter had failed to grasp was the nature of the contract I had signed in watching this potentially paranormal snuff film of my favorite team’s hopes and dreams on the apparently haunted hardwood of Madison Square Garden!!
(Who says dramatic monologuing isn’t the spice of life?)
And the Spurs clawed out one final lead. They were about to be up double digits.
And then the Knicks successfully challenged the foul, with Keldon Johnson found to be the real culprit like some awful Scooby Doo reveal, which wiped out Wemby’s make and the free-throw.
And the Brunson hit a shot. And then Anunoby. And the valiant De’Aaron Fox answered, but Brunson continued to close the gap.
An alley-oop to Victor, but it didn’t seem to matter. The fix was in, and it felt malevolently Calvinistic. The Knicks were the Elect. Everything was predetermined. We’d seen this movie before. At least twice. And I was definitely not crashing out in a pseudo-theological way at all.
And then Castle hit a three.
And it wasn’t just a three. It was an end-of-the-shot-clock plea for intercession. A life exchange momentarily shifting someone else’s name onto Basketball Death’s list in place of your own. The resuscitation of an NBA team that was flat-lining. A tiny miracle of the sort that had been evading the Spurs all series.
And you could tell the invigoration was real, because no one hung their head or checked out when OG Anunoby ended up at the free-throw line. Or when Jalen Brunson benefited from one last gasp of ludicrous magic by hitting a step-back three to cut the lead to three points.
And then Fox, the 2023 NBA Clutch Player of the Year, who’s had to pick his spots for most of the series, picked the last perfect spot of the night, with a mid-range jumper right over the formidably-defending Anunoby, and the light at the end of the tunnel was there. The edge of the maze. The weirdly rampant zombie-killing lawn mower.
And a pair of free-throws from Castle iced the game, like it was Jack Torrance out of doors in a Rocky Mountain snowstorm.
And I was relieved, which feels like the wrong word, because I wasn’t sure what to write. But also the right word, because I really had to pee.
The ending of the film version of the shining is ambiguous. We don’t actually know what happened to Jack, or who/what he even is. The Final Destination films are heading into their seventh installment, with no more hint of clarity or cessation than in the films before.
The Spurs still have to play Game 4. They’ll still be at The Garden. There’s no way of knowing if this was a respite, or a turning point. Anticipation is its own kind of psychological horror.
But for one night, the Spurs disrupted the conspiratorial delusions of at least one Spurs fan.
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know if they’ve broken the cycle. But I know that I can’t stop watching.
I can’t help it. It’s the best show around.
Takeways
- For most of the postseason, the Spurs have actually shot a little above (79.5%) their season average (78.7%) at the free throw line, but they shot 75% during the first two games, and it cost them. Shooting closer to their average last night (78%) was almost certainly a deciding factor when the margin is so thing, so let’s hope they continue to trend upwards in the respect. People always talk about championships being won in the margins to the point of eliciting the occasional eye roll, but that’s how much a 3% difference can matter. Maybe Mitch Johnson should set up a practice where players shoot free-throws while Sean Sweeney stands next to them doing his best Chucky Doll impression? I’ve got all kinds of ideas, if only they’d ask me.
- The Spurs also managed to finally knock down their threes to the tune of something close to their season average (35%). Variance is a beast that both teams are falling victim to in that arena, but the Spurs shot 30% from three over those first two games, and the law of averages has somewhat avenged them. Thankfully, the Knicks are finally sinking back down to just below their regular season average (with some Spursy assistance, of course) after going on a very extended hot streak over multiple rounds, but the Spurs aren’t going to win the day in MSG again if they get a repeat of those first two performances, so light your payer candles before the game, because I get the feeling they’re going to have to weather a fierce response.
- Keldon Johnson looked a little bit better after a pair of games that had me questioning how he could be effectively used in this series. But by limiting his usage, and picking his spots more like De’Aaron Fox, he ended the game with the team-high plus minus and has pulled himself out of the depths of a negative net rating. However, as much as I like the more discerning approach, I get the feeling that the Spurs are going to need *at least* one big game out of Keldon in order to bring home the trophy, so he still needs to keep his eye out for opportunities while biding his time more efficiently. Both of the previous series have featured at least one game with Keldon on a heater. Does he have one more in him against a team that has clearly prepared for thwarting him? I guess we’ll see.
- Carter Bryant hit a three! It’s his first of the series, and we like to celebrate the little victories as well here at PTR. Naturally we all expect him to instantly morph into Steph Curry and change the complexion of the series. That seems fair. Maybe I can go out and buy one of those wishing willows from Obsession. I’m sure that won’t backfire at all. It’s not like it’s a Monkey’s Paw.
Playing You Out – The Theme Song of the Evening:
The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnyman
