While most NBA observers were focused on the Heat-Bulls game last night — a 101-97 victory for Chicago, and the end of a historic winning streak for Miami — my attention was focused on the Warriors, who are trying to break a (far less magnanimous) streak of their own, and qualify for their first postseason since 2007. With the playoffs around the corner, and with Utah, Dallas and Los Angeles all fighting for the last seed out West, it was important to win all the truly winnable games remaining on the schedule. Last night was one of those winnable games; the final game of the year between the Dubs and the Kings. Though the Lakers and the Jazz had won their games, Houston had lost theirs, so the opportunity to gain a full game in the standings and solidify that sixth spot — and, more importantly, a playoff berth — had presented itself fully and unapologetically. All the Warriors had to do was win; a fairly heady prospect for a team still learning the ins-and-outs of being a good team. The Kings outworked the Warriors on the offensive glass and out-hustled them to loose balls. They outscored them on second chance points, and controlled the tempo from start-to-finish. The end result was a 105-98 loss to the team’s regional rival, bringing the season record to 1-3 against the divisional rival (in name only). It was a pretty disappointing affair, especially considering how emotional their last game — a troucning of the Lakers, hated by both the Kings and the Warriors –had been.
But, while disappointing, it was hard to get too bent out of shape about it. Houston had lost their game against the Pacers, so while the Warriors failed to add another cushion between sixth and seventh place, the only changes in the standings happened at the very bottom (the Lakers and Jazz both won). The Warriors magic number stood pat at six, with the Blazers coming into town during the weekend. Not much left to do but move on with both my NBA-based life and my life-based-life. You can’t win them all; even as a fairly new good-team fan, I realized this simple fact. It was probably best to move on.
It was interesting, though. Once upon a time — like, last year, and the vast majority of the twenty-or-so seasons before — wins like the one the Kings had just achieved were the lifeblood of the late season. They were the unexpected caramel delight in a Whitman’s sampler box full of coconut and nougat filled choco-droppings, a delicious morsel to just let sit on your tongue and savor while it melts. With 70 disappointing games in the book, and only 10-12 left to sit through before you have endure four months of no-basketball (to be followed by another season of losing basketball), these late season wins are small moments of respite before the growing storm. In a way, they legitimate the time and effort spent during the previous five months, where the same tired patterns present themselves endlessly, and the same tired results are processed and analyzed ad nauseum. This is when you can say, yes, it was worth watching. It was worth believing, if only foolishly. You can succeed. You can win. For a fan of a bad team during the difficult limbo between playoff contention-elimination and draft lottery, this really is all they have.
What interested me about the whole brouhaha was, for the first time in my life, I got to be on the other side of the affair; the fan of the “good team” left wondering what the hell had happened to my guys. Gone was the trollish pleasure of seeing your merry band of ne’er-do-well-nor-consistently’s unseat the guys with 40 (40! Can you even imagine?) wins. Departed was the unexpected surprise of seeing a crisp, successful offense where, for three months prior, one had failed to exist. Instead, I was flummoxed to see the Warriors allow 26 second chance points after countless offensive rebounds and half-attempted hustle plays. I was perplexed by the combined 6-31 shooting between Klay Thompson and Steph Curry, the starting guards for the Warriors (including a John Starks-like 1-for-13 performance from Klay). I was left scratching my head as Isaiah Thomas torched our perimeter defense, and as Jason Thompson rained jumpers on starting pivot Andrew Bogut. There was no explanation to lean on; no proven axiom to turn to for comfort. It was an old fashioned tuchus whoopin’ and we — of course I am included — were on the wrong side of it.
Indeed, it’s a strange feeling; watching a team like the Kings do what the Warriors used to do every few weeks or so: take advantage of emotional vacuums and lulls in energy to craft short term confidence, and at the same time, confound a seemingly superior plan and program. When Chuck Hayes snatches another offensive rebound despite the presence of four white jerseys and finds John Salmons on the outside, who calmly knocks down a corner three, you’re left wondering how these guys managed to get it done. When you witness Tyreke Evans complete his destitute-man’s-LeBron act yet again, you’re pointedly frustrated by the proceedings. When you see the Warriors walking around the floor with a bewildered pout painted across their faces, their eyes seemingly saying, how are these guys getting everything they want?, you begin to question everything that’s happened to the sixth-seeded club up to this point. How can a team that beat the Lakers so convincingly the prior game lose to the Kings, who have the worst road record in the league? How could they allow the Kings to become so confident in their seemingly-random offense, where a new player basically says, “okay, my turn to take a shot!” before hoisting up whatever seems available? How can we take the team seriously?
For Warriors fans like myself, this season has been an incredible adjustment. With nearly the entire regular season in the books, it is startlingly apparent that paying attention to winning basketball is a more serious undertaking than watching a hopeless team stumble into occasional success. The occasional highs of a bad team — like a road win against a playoff team — do not match the emotional lows of an occasional loss, or even a losing streak. Wins begin to become expected, and the losses suddenly deserve a deeper explanation. This is in stark contrast to our previous life as a stowaway in basketball steerage, fighting not to get seasick among the pitching and swaying of a massive ship, just trying survive the journey to its blessed completion. In those days , wins were fetishized and hyper-analyzed, dissected into fine layers in a vain attempt to find a cure for prolonged losing. The losses, which had accumulated like pimples on a 13 year old whose hormones are in full revolt, were part of the package; a ubiquitous presence and permanent byproduct. Those didn’t need to be questioned. Those just happened. They always did, and always would.
Needless to say, it is far preferable to suffer through occasional losses than it is to celebrate the occasional win. It is good to be able to shrug one’s shoulders and say, sometimes, good teams lose to bad ones, and move on with your day, rather than savor the fleeting sweetness of an unexpected victory against an unlikely opponent. It is nicer to fail while surrounded by the symbols of success rather that achieve temporary greatness while the malaise settles around you. This is why we sat through the bad; to be able to contextualize the good.
So, in the end, I’m happy. Just as long as we beat the Blazers on Saturday.
