If any of us were worried about the lingering aftereffects from that loss in New York on Sunday, this was a great litmus test to reveal exactly where you fall on the half-full, half-empty divide of life’s great optimism scale. You can look at the 131 points they scored on 55% shooting from the field and breathe a sigh of relief. You can watch the highlights of 18 threes raining down in the City of Brotherly Love and think to yourself, “There we go, back on track.” Our guys repeatedly getting to the basket,
all while holding Philly’s electric guard duo in check, can rock you to sleep and tuck you into your Fiesta-colored sheets while you drift off to continue your dreams of postseason glory. This is a route available to you.
You can also listen to your demons.
Beyond Maxey and Edgecombe, the Sixers rolled out their ball boys last night. They had the ghost of Andre Drummond trying to wrestle with Wembanyama. I’d be hard-pressed to find a time I heard the announcers say the word “undersized” more over the course of a broadcast. This was a throwaway. An exhibition. A meaningless excuse for our guys to get some cardio in before returning to Texas. The lack of stakes in this one only serving to highlight how thoroughly the ball got dropped when the lights were shining their brightest in New York over the weekend.
Or whatever! Choose your own adventure. I’m not your mom.
Look, I’m not even exactly sure where I land on this one, but I think the best course of action is to aim small and miss small. This wasn’t a glorious return to form. It wasn’t a complete sham. It was… you know. It was fine.
Given the opportunity to run a team out of the gym, I’m always happy to see the Spurs do it. We’ve seen them play with their food plenty this season against inferior opponents, and it’s infuriating. I’m over the moon that we seem to have gotten our act together on that front and decided to make Taking Care of Business one of the top priorities. Don’t worry about the details. Play whoever is in front of you. Move on to the next.
If the Spurs did anything in this game, they showed an attitude and a temperament that they’re going to need in the coming wars. They could’ve come into this one a little hangdog. I mean, it’s the last game of a long road trip against an opponent that’s not exactly lighting the Beacons of Gondor and calling for a command performance. It’s coming on the heels of a game where they got humbled a little bit. I’m sure it would’ve been easy for them to look at this one and tell themselves it just didn’t matter. It’s one game. Let’s get it over with and go home.
I probably would’ve forgiven them.
As we all got to see, they didn’t do that. They brought the noise. They flew around on defense. They grabbed boards. They made hustle plays left and right. They were certainly the more talented team on the floor, but they didn’t rely on that to carry the day. If this was a practice, then they did everything at game speed. Maybe we won’t be singing about this game in the halls of our ancestors or anything, but performances like this are part of the DNA of teams that end up being special like that.
As a fan, I’m just fully ready to move on to the next phase of things. Every regular season game right now gives me the same feeling I get filling out my taxes. I want the playoffs to start yesterday. It has been almost seven years since I watched our guys play a real playoff game and my body is ready. I’m looking ahead. I’m distracted. I’m doing all the things they tell you not to do. Let’s go! Enough already!
Thankfully, this team seems to have a little more patience than I do. They’re going one game at a time. Never too high, never too low. Win the next game. Aim small, miss small.
This is the way.
Takeaways
- The Play-In games don’t count. Don’t come in here saying “the Spurs were in the playoffs in 2022” unless you want me stop taking you seriously as a person.
- The energy in this game was interesting. It was obviously a little deflated on principle because we weren’t getting a true best-on-best matchup. I mean, no Harrison Barnes in the lineup? I’d forgive anyone for skipping it! Still, it had a few weird little stretches where things got kind of feisty. The pace would suddenly accelerate on both sides and it felt like everyone was sprinting around, jacking threes and throwing down dunks. It was exciting! It wasn’t, you know, great basketball, but it was pretty fun to watch. Kind of like watching a haunted shopping cart race down a hill toward two workers carrying a pane of glass. What’s going to happen? Where’d those guys come from? What unfinished business does that cart have?!?
- I’m enjoying the evolution of Carter Bryant this season. I remember watching him early in the year and noting to myself sagely, “Nice kid, doesn’t quite have it, though.” It’s almost like I completely ignored the possibility that a 20-year-old playing his first real NBA minutes might not be a finished product yet. Funny how that works. He’s looked great recently and he’s clearly carved out a niche role for himself in this rotation, coming in to stretch the floor, crash the glass, and make sure the energy doesn’t drop while the starters are taking a blow. So, you know, basically exactly what we drafted him to do? Imagine that! Periodic reminder to disregard anything I say in here. (Unless I’m eventually proven correct, then you should rightly praise me as a genius).
- Was the NBC throwback broadcast fun? I guess. Do we feel like NBC, in general, is pandering a little too hard to us geriatric millennials to the point where it almost feels like they’re going to put us down soon or something? A little! I truly love some nostalgia bait as much as the next guy, but I’m genuinely at the point with the NBA on NBC thing where I’m just like, “OK! Roundball Rock is great! Michael Jordan used to play basketball on this network! We get it! Enough already!” Seriously guys, have an ounce of faith in yourselves to create something new. You’re paying like $2.5 billion a year for the rights to these games. I’d be happy to whip up a fresh graphics package for, like, half that. Call me.
WWL Post Game Press Conference
– Once you saw the Sixers injury report, did you consider sitting you starters for this one?
– Yeah, we had a conversation about it internally but ultimately decided there was no reason to change our game plan. At the end of the day, our job is to write a WWL regardless of what the opponent is doing. We can’t let them dictate our approach.
– Are you worried about injuries though, especially in a game that might be considered a “throwaway” like this?
– Well, to be clear, I’m worried about injuries all the time. That’s always a top concern. You pull a finger muscle typing, or I don’t know, your back stiffens up at this point in the season and suddenly you’re in real trouble come the playoffs. I know everyone plays hurt at that phase of the season, but you still want to put your best foot forward.
– Still, in light of those concerns, there was no temptation to maybe just play the second string tonight.
– Yeah, I mean like I said, I’m concerned about injuries all the time. That’s not unique to this time of year. So the best course of action for us as an organization was just to go business as usual and let the rest take care of itself.
– Any truth to the rumor that the editorial team puts pressure on its writers to play through injuries on nights like this?
– I’m not going to comment on anything from the league office here. We’ve always had a strong working relationship and I feel confident they would respect our decision.
– There’s chatter on social media that you reportedly told them, “My allergies are really bad, I don’t want to write this morning,” and that their response was, and I’m just reading a quote here, “Get typing, snotty.” Any comment?
– I’m not here to get into Twitter nonsense.
