It’s no surprise to those who know me best that I have absolutely no interest in basketball. My German father, disappointed by the absence of soccer (the sport of his youth) in 1950s through 1980s America, had absolutely no interest in pro-sports. Indeed, he found inane the whole concept of a “home team” made up entirely of men bought and sold from all over the country like chattel. I’m quite fond of high school and college football, but only if I’m actually attending the high school or the college at a given time. So, again, it’s unsurprising that pro-basketball leave me cold.
Having said that, I’d have to be living under a rock not to know that the San Francisco Golden State Warriors are experiencing a spectacular underdog success story, further bolstered by their surprise victory last night:
He was stalking the sidelines like a madman, limping slightly on a bad wheel, gesturing wildly to a crowd already in love with him. They couldn’t possibly have gotten louder, but somehow they did. Baron Davis will do that, right along with Stephen Jackson, Matt Barnes and the rest of the nation’s most riveting sports story. They’ll take the Golden State Warriors and 20,677 fans where they haven’t been in far too long.
This was midway through the third quarter of the Bay Area’s greatest basketball night in 32 years — the night the Warriors defeated the Dallas Mavericks, 111-86, to win a first-round NBA playoff series that felt infinitely more significant. They were in the middle of a 24-3 run, turning excruciating tension into a deafening roar, and Davis wasn’t holding back. He fairly strutted along that sideline. It was one of those moments when talent combines with sheer willpower to create an unstoppable force.
What happened in Oakland on Thursday night climaxed the most improbable playoff series the league has ever seen. Dallas had won 67 games to the Warriors’ 42 during the regular season. They were the all-conquering masters, talking boldly of returning to the NBA Finals, while the Warriors clawed desperately into the eighth and final playoff spot on the last day of the season. That 25-game difference is what makes it historic — and not just for the NBA. Neither the National Hockey League nor Major League Baseball has seen a disparity that great.
As they look ahead to the Western Conference semifinals, scheduled to begin Monday, the Warriors await the winner of Saturday’s Game 7 between Houston and Utah. The Warriors would surrender the home-court advantage to either of those teams, but at this point, who cares? They unleashed a premonition by winning Game 1 of this series in Dallas, making sure they could win it right here in the Bay Area.
It’s a wonderful and thrilling story, even for those of us who aren’t “into” the sport. But I’m not mentioning it just because of it’s feel-good aura. I mention it because the Warriors’ victory really represents a triumph of spirit. As I understand it from DQ, new management made the team feel like a cohesive, successful entity, and each victory fed future ones.
Please compare the Warriors’ management style with this one, and draw your own conclusions about psychology and victory. In the same vein, please read this article, and compare it to your local MSM cheerleading style (”We’re losers, we’re killers, we’re abusers! Rah! Rah! Rah!”)
Filed under: Anti-war, Congress, Democrats, Iraq, Media matters
It’s the first week in May; they’re still playing basketball?
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Having said that, I’d have to be living under a rock not to know that the San Francisco Warriors are experiencing a spectacular underdog success story, further bolstered by their surprise victory last night:
And I’m not surprised that you would be interested in an underdog story, Book.
San Francisco Warriors? LOL
I too was thrilled they won the series. I had a feeling about the series, the Warriors matched up very well with Dallas so I was happily suprised they won but not shocked.
I love Basketball, college, pro, don’t care.
PS It’s the Golden State Warriors…
Hi JJ,
Heck, they’re just getting started. This was just the first round of the playoffs.
This is so WONDERFUL, I’m excited from clear out in Tennessee!
Nellie is a grand old man, and a fine coach, who was run out of town by one of his players because the former management had no stones.
It’s good to have him back, and terrific to see the success he is achieving with good guys playing team basketball.
And to beat Mark Cuban and the Mavericks (I am kind of sorry about Avery Johnson, the coach, who is a good guy) is just TOO good.
GO, WARRIORS!!
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Not about sports.
http://www.webscription.net/pm-588-3-1812-the-rivers-of-war.aspx
People were talking about the Native American situation back when.
Eric Flint has an interesting take on the situation, in his fictional alternative history novel.
Native Americans, stuck in the same spot as patricians after WWII and the Islamic Jihad right now in Arabia and Europe, either had to advance and reform themselves, or they were going into the ash bin of history. One way or another. Eric Flint tells his story of how that could occur.
A lot of people talk about the lack of compassion on the Right. Not that Bush’s bucketfulls of compassion did anybody any good, but that really isn’t the point. The point is that you need more than compassion, you need work. As in, working it. Productive, positive, building. Not totalitarian destructive whining, complaining, and Reiding.
So long as there is work for the positive going on, most people will view your side positively, even if your side is the Native American side.
If there is one thing that has driven both war and peace, it is economic motivations and drives. But economics are based upon culture and the system of government. And systems of government are based upon theory, ideas, practice, and leaders. All of which is non-tribal in origin. Except for the leader part.
DQ – not with me watching, they aren’t. I’m one of those hopeless Luddites who thinks winter sports ought to relate to the winter, and be over when it’s over. Basketball and hockey should be wrapped up and done by the end of March at latest. Football should be the hell out of here at the endof December. Baseball should be a wrap the first week of October.
I understand that they stretch the seasons, and add layers of nonsensical “playoffs” purely for monetary purposes, but I think in the end that’s self-defeating. The two most egregious offenders are hocky and basketball, and hocky and basketball are also the most hurting of the “major-league” sports. When you get to the point where after a whole season of play you manage to eliminate fewer teams than end up in your “playoffs,” and some of the teams in your “playoffs” don’t even require winning records to be there; you are perilously close to self-parody, it seems to me.
It must seem so to a lot of other people, too, because their ratings are terrible. The NBA required Larry Bird and Earvin Johnson to electrify, rescue, and rekindle interest in the league, or it would have gone under twenty-five years ago. I suspect they’re headed that way again.
And hockey – poor hockey can’t even get a game on TV except for the “playoffs,” and by that point who cares?
I live near Seattle, and the attitude of this city to the Sonics, who stupidly tried to hold the taxpayers up for a new something-or-other to the stadium just this year was pretty much along the lines of: “don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, fellas – bye!”
Basketball and hockey are offensively ridiculous in May and June; it is offensively ridiculous to have more teams “make” the “playoffs” than there are eliminated by the regular season; and I suspect both hockey and basketball will be gone before we are all very much older.
The most important thing about sports is that it provides us with metaphors for life: sports teaches you to go to the starting line without choking, teaches you about overcoming your own limitations, to build upon your strengths and finding ways to overcome your weaknesses, to absorb punishment without surrendering your mind to emotion, and to persevere through all obstacles toward a goal.
You also (should) learn about how to honor yourself by honoring your opponents, to pick yourself up and rebuild from defeat, and to strengthen yourself through adversity.
Most importantly, sports should teach that nothing in life was meant to be an easy ride. Without adversity, we have nothing to learn. Watching professional sports provides a great reminder of these lessons.