The Memories of Older Men

 I was tall for my age,

And turned to basketball in hopes

            Of finding trousers that fit.

Perhaps it sounds silly,

But, so does a cracking voice

            In a silent room –

That funny, broken language of youth.

Here, during the early years,

There are fewer things more important

            Than to know, you aren’t alone.

So, I sought the trouser deficient

Because shared plight is hardly a plight at all,

            It is a chance to be,

Without being more than you can handle.

It was a revolution of the physically awkward.

We danced across the hardwood.

We moved in synchronicity,

            And we moved in corresponding paths,

Larger than the sum of our parts,

Which is difficult to believe.

            In waking life, we stumbled,

But here, we found grace.

Though my limbs remained gangly,

And what I sought never found its way into my possession,

            I did eventually inherit wealth;

The glowing riches of glory delivering itself

Into my hands: the soft arch fighting against time –

            A time I never thought of –  

And when it ended, how was I to know?

I can still hear the voices, the throats urging glee.

I don’t remember if I eeked anything more than a

            Squeaky whelp, but for that moment, I was loved.

If you go into that gym now,

My name will still hang,

            And there I am young.

It is a life that continues on, with age and death be damned.

The laurels short-lived, and I have lived too long without.

Wednesday Night in Mexico City

Well, I'm back for my (now) weekly blog post!

I watched the entire Rockets-T-Wolves game on Wednesday night. I did this for a few reasons:

     1. They are the 10th and 5th youngest teams in the NBA, respectively

The six youngest teams in the NBA, in order, are the 76ers, Bucks, Jazz, Celtics, Timberwolves, and Magic. What do all these teams have in common? They suck. And aren’t going to sniff the playoffs this year. Which makes sense, in today’s NBA where you want to load up on picks, and suck until you acquire enough young talent to make an actual run. But what a difference a few spots makes. At 9th youngest you have the Thunder, and then 10th youngest are the Rockets. Two teams with definite championship aspirations, which goes to show that there’s a point for every team where you have to stop leaning on the excuse of youth, and just go out and win a few games. But back to the point, this game was going to be actually interesting to watch.

2. Dwight Howard may have the ugliest, yet most effective game in the world

As frustrating as Dwight’s offensive game may be to watch, if he’s put in the right position (like, say a regular season game played in Mexico City, where he’s the biggest star) it can be a real treat. He was egging on the crowd, goaltending, and generally acting a fool. Which we certainly didn’t get a glimpse of during his Lakers years.

3. The Timberwolves have no idea what they are. But are still super fun to watch.

Now that Rubio’s out, Zach Lavine is attempting to run the point. The man is not a point guard. He’s a super athletic two, with arms, legs, and dunking ability for days, but not who you want running your offense. There were probably three plays a half where he made such an athletic play that maybe six other players in the league could make--going coast to coast through 4 guys, turning the corner into the lane, or just jumping over the rim--but every time he had no idea how to finish. It was like he knew what to do, and could barely believe that he was allowed to do it, but had no concept of how to finish elegantly. And to be fair, that upside (see also: The Brow) is so tempting if you’re a general manager. This kid has all the physical abilities, we just need to harness that energy. Every UCLA fan agrees, and that’s what made him such a frustrating player in Westwood, and will continue to frustrate Minnesotans for years to come.

4. Andrew Wiggins. What did Minnesota get in return for Kevin Love? (I don’t count Bennett.)

Well, he’s not a great offensive player yet, but he could be a real lockdown defender, and with his athleticism, he could very easily become a Scottie Pippen/Shawn Marion-type for the frozen north. Check back in 4 years and we’ll see what he’s done, and if he's learned to score in the league.

5. Did I mention that I had three players in this game in a daily fantasy game with $20 riding on it?

Oh yeah, that probably should have been reason number one. Turns out Isaiah Canaan is horrendous--Jason Terry outplayed him, and it wasn’t even close. The man can’t finish at the rim, or anywhere else on the court for that matter. Konstantinos "Kostas" Papanikolaou is my new favorite Greek (after the Freak, of course--that’s forever and always a lock). The man has a wet jumper, isn’t horrendous defensively, which is to say, he plays Houston Rockets basketball. But, I still pulled out the 50/50 because James Harden can get to the rim whenever he desires. Here’s a thought, NBA defenses: try to not hack his arms when he puts them out there for you to foul him. The man is always on the free throw line. We’ve seen this for five years. Whatever, I guess that’s why I’m not the next Thibs. And to be honest, I’m OK with it. At least I’m capable of a smile.

Follow Jon Getz on Twitter @jongetz09 where he’ll start to live tweet games, and then stop for no reason.

5-1

The Warriors look amazing. At 5-1 and as of yesterday boasting the league's top ranked defense, they've finally started looking the part of true contender, shedding the Junior Varsity feel of a talented yet fatally flawed paper tiger. Most of this, in my humble and fairly well shared opinion, is the result of Mark Jackson's dismissal. I thought Jackson did more than most to shackle the potential of this team, but to be fair, he did a lot of good things for the Warriors, most notably getting (most) of them to fall totally head over heels in coach-love with him. When Jackson was fired some of us wondered about the chemistry or the raw lingering feelings guys like Steph and Draymond and Andre Iguodala might carry with them after seeing their guy done dirty. I thought about this for half a second, mentioned it to my dad, and what my dad told me was to get real.

My father has tried to teach me many things over the years, and it’s not the least bit his fault I downright failed to learn most of them. He has a patient heart, but I am a poor student. Fractions, Windsor knots, how to keep a car from exploding, these are just some of the things I failed or half-failed to grasp under his guidance. Born in the middle of the pack of eight children, with beauty queens and a boy genius leading the way, he figured going out for organized sports was his ticket to defining himself. Basketball was his favorite. It’s safe to say that it is not a coincidence that basketball is the only sport that I really care about. 

Dad was interested in slightly manlier things than I was. Besides football and basketball, he was also captivated by the history of war, drove a pick-up truck, enjoyed jets, and liked his steak rare. As I grew up awkward and sarcastic, he accepted and approved and supported. He watched with patience as I tried to throw that huge orange ball up at the hoop and rarely lucked into a made shot. I really was a terrible pupil, but as I said, that didn’t matter to him. He explained the game with grace, deflecting one dumb question at a time or several at once. He peeled away arcane layers and made it all so simple, so profound, so no shit. He was like a hoops-head Socrates, pre-hemlock.

So, imagine my surprise last season, when this team-this successful team of Warriors, this team my dad revealed to me, finally GOOD after so many awful and worse years-annoyed the shit out of me. And seemingly at all times, the national media and any talking head in proximity to a microphone browbeated us into accepting Mark Jackson as the benevolent savior of a beshitted and cursed franchise. He was the Patron Saint of Beggars Can't Be Choosers. Notwithstanding finding him a thinly veiled hypocritical blowhard, it was painful to watch this team as constructed continually attempt to paint using hammers. 

There were moments, of course. Good moments, excellent moments. But the joy hovered just out of reach. It was coy cruelty, potential so obviously unrealized it felt almost ludicrous. But yes, there was good stuff. Stephen Curry unleashed was and is lovely to behold. Andrew Bogut’s blunt rage inspires, but didn't have such good home and away splits. Those games in which Iguodala shifted into the corporeal and looked like the player he used to be…When Draymond Green showed again and again why he deserves minutes over Nice Fella Harrison Barnes…when Klay Thompson hits a corner three completely stoned out of his mind and hella dreaming of munchies…

And yet one of the defining feel-good moments of last year, when the Warriors snarled back from an unseemly ass-whupping by the then lowly Toronto Raptors en route to a(n) historic comeback, felt altogether more nauseating than inspiring. When they couldn’t defend their homecourt against cellar dwellers (reflexively thinking of a group of grown men as “cellar dwellers” also seems wrong!), or when they couldn’t manage to put away the Spurs sans their Big Three or when Harrison Barnes consistently failed to beat Kirk Hinrich off the dribble… A jilted lover’s obsession with taking advantage of match-ups…18 year veteran Jermaine O’Neal as your best player for long stretches…Walking the ball up the court…The rumored exile of the avuncular and wise Jim Barnett…The calling for hedonistic hero ball again and again, by design.

This team should have been able to run anyone off the court and yet…

They just didn’t, or couldn’t, or wouldn’t.

They were poets reduced to copywriters. All the incessant talk of the offensively dominant and exciting to watch Warriors ended up being precisely that-incessant talk. Supremely constructed mediocrity! And so it was. “Perfection” was closer, but not that close. After exile from basketball relevancy, I wanted to immediately be the Spurs and the Showtime Lakers, and the 1996 Bulls. Several things became apparent in rapid succession. Maybe Bulls and Lakers and Spurs fans have never felt the joy that comes with uncertainty. Their teams are too good, too well managed. Success is terrifying. Being a fan of a professional sports team is insanity. Willingly signing up for a plane crash, or at least a plane that may never end up landing. Is it moral to hand down this trifling angst generation to generation? Should I put a Golden State Warriors cap on my son’s head? Should I watch the games with my little girls?

My phone calls home were infrequent, but they usually consisted of  75% Warriors talk. I’ve kept a lot of my angst from Dad. But there was one particular game I had to sound off about. It was a narrow win, over a terrible team. A game we should have won by forty points. A game we should have won before the whistle even blew. I was driving home from depositing a negligible check. My mood was foul. There was frost on my window and this winter was never going to end. Two rings and dad answered. I readied some talking points.

“See the game?” Dad asked.

“Yeah. It-”

“It was great.” And then he started talking about Stephen Curry the way young Macedonians might have spoken about Alexander the Great.

I swallowed my petty complaints instantly, or at least compartmentalized them. They were valid. But they didn’t have anything to do with this version of the Warriors, this part of their objective truth. The part that had to do with my dad.

Dad still believed. Dad has been around long enough to keep the faith. Dad didn't care about Mark Jackson. He shared every one of my misgivings. But unlike his feckless son, Dad is not one to quit on something. As I said, I’m slow to learn. 

One thing I’ve always retroactively admired is my dad has always been ready and able to pull my head out of my ass, but benevolently, and without reprimand. And sometimes the faithful are rewarded. Sometimes they aren't of course. Sometimes the faithful are hanged from the neck until they be dead or forced to endure five seasons of pure unencumbered tanking. But...sometimes they are rewarded.

And this year has been a very nice reward, indeed. The Golden State Warriors have played a mere six games and yet the world has turned and left Mark Jackson looking awful. From top to bottom, the Warriors look like a team ready to make a run of it, literally a run, as they no longer stroll leisurely up the court as if on the way to a mid-term. My grim prognostication about the Warriors getting thrashed early in the season for failing to acclimate to Steve Kerr's new system seems to have been unfounded. My nightmares of Mareese Speights shooting half court shots with 23 seconds left on the shot clock were just that, nightmares (weird nightmares). There's always the possibility of a mass unraveling. Injuries, Shakespearean betrayal, a panic trade, the Reckoning of the Return of Kevin Durant, many and more things can of course derail this beautiful train. But that's the game, yo. And the Warriors are playing the game out of their fucking minds right now.

And my dad is happy.

An Ode to Regular Season Defense - The Most Grandiose of Guest Posts

Welcome to another exciting guest post from friend of the blog, Jon Getz (@jongetz09). -David

You unheralded nightly Warrior
(Well, Bogut, Iggy, Thompson)
Nightly grinder, full of grit
No highlights for you, in fast live tweets
Only on posters, will you be put
For challenging a Blake or James
And yet, without your close-outs
Your swift rotations, and crouch so low
The ABA would have returned
119 to 105 would be no surprise
So with this forum, we honor you
Your craft is for the playoffs
How championships are won
Though never understood, or focused on
Thibs is proud (well, can he be?)
No smile may cross those lips
For an uncontested three
Or too many throws, free

A block in bounds, let’s say, a "Russell"
Will never make it through to that muscle
Of Howard’s arms, they’ll swat with fury
But Duncan taps, and then will hurry
Secure the possession, and the break
And Leonard too, we all would take
If on-ball defense were a stat
If only life could be just that—
Unrecognized, we still want more
The biggest steals, we know as lore
But is it worth, to gamble so?
For Paul, yes, Rubio, no
So get low, wing man on D
Hike up your shorts, slap the floor
And if it’s up to me
So long as you’re not Craft, we’ll love you more

Follow Jon "Keats" Getz on twitter @jongetz09, where he promises to only make clever literary puns, if at all. And he’ll only reference the Celtics’ Marcus’ defense as "wicked Smaht" once a season.

The Saturday Evening Post-Up: "Falling in Love Again"

So the C’s do just fine without Rondo. They won despite Aaron Brooks’ best efforts, which were mighty indeed. 

                                           Points. He brings points.

I’m not sure I’d chalk this loss up to the Celtics being good so much as the Bulls inexplicably dropping a game from time to time. They get tired, and Thibs can only yell so loud. Maybe he should develop the carrot aspect of his motivational combo. He could take Pau to get some history books at Myopic, or buy Taj a Tastee-Freeze or something. 

Elsewhere in the league, basketball’s favorite billionaire netted another win. Speculation abounds w/r/t the Clippers being "LA’s new team," and I’m not sure why the city would even hesitate with hopping on board. LA is a notoriously fickle town as-is, but who does it hurt, really? It’s not like the Lakers are going to vanish, or check your bank history for Clippers ticket purchases. Plus I’m all for conspiratorially ignoring Kobe, in order to make him achieve Maximum Kobe out of spite.

Steve Kerr can coach some basketball. What’s the Arabic for “only undefeated team left”? Expect Alex to say more about the Golden State in the near future. Expect that "more" to be 90% fanfiction.

Finally we have the Milwaukee Bucks, properly earning a win against the heretofore undefeated Memphis squad.  That isn’t to say Memphis played perfectly. Z-Bo got a little too confident from deep, and the Grizz started to lean on him in lieu of running a proper offense. Randolph made the improbable halftime buzzbeater seen here:

And, paradoxical though it may seem, that shot was the beginning of their end.

There are a few factors that correlate highly with the Bucks that win vs. the Bucks that lose, and they all fell into place. Ersan Ilyasova can play very well, but some nights he performs so badly as to become a liability. Other nights he’s beautiful defensively and efficient on offense. Last night was the latter. 

Then we have the “arms race.” Physical freak spotters all around have pointed to Giannis as if to say, “This is what I meant.” As if all that is required to succeed on the highest level of basketball is to be a gigantic bundle of limbs. In this way many undermine the talent of players by reducing them to borderline-phrenological ratios of arm length, studies of speed and height. These numbers indicate something, certainly, but last night was a reminder that Giannis is here because he can play. 

Consult OJ Mayo’s gorgeous football assist to Antetokonmpo near the end to see what I mean. Court/ball awareness, and most importantly trust, a relationship between teammates, and pretty darn fun basketball. I know the Bucks will ultimately hurt me, as they have before. Alas, I can't help it.

-David

Clippers/Warriors Preview

A dimly lit bar. ANDREW BOGUT is sitting by the taps, four empty pint glasses arrayed before him in no particular pattern. Light pours in momentarily as DRAYMOND GREEN saunters through the door. He spots BOGUT and smiles, which is also a sort of light in the darkness.

BOGUT

Draymond. How're you, mate? Just throwing back some amber fluid before the big game. How "big" of a game is it really though, what with the early returns on the Clippers season being a bit bodgy, especially this mad three-point social experiment from Blake Griffin, that miserable bogan.

DRAYMOND

I'm fine. Coach sent me to find you, said you told him you just had to go to the bathroom.

BOGUT

Yeah, that's true enough, though I meant the one at this bar, even though it smells of freshly made chunder in there. Have a pint mate, it's on me, I'm richer than you after all. Richer than damn near everyone on the squad, really!

DRAYMOND

Thanks.

A BARTENDER, round in the mid-section, but with kind eyes approaches. 

BARTENDER

What'll it be?

DRAYMOND

I'll have a Screwdriver.

BARTENDER

Vodka preference?

DRAYMOND

Well, please.

BARTENDER

Coming right up.

The BARTENDER walks off to make the drink. BOGUT and DRAYMOND sit quietly together. BOGUT is lost in his thoughts. The BARTENDER returns with the drink. DRAYMOND tips two dollars.

BOGUT

Heard you switched agents.

DRAYMOND

Yeah. Figured-

BOGUT

Why'd you do that, Draymond? He ear-bashing you? 

DRAYMOND

Oh no. I just want to put myself in a good position to-

BOGUT

To what, Dray? Fuck over the team? Destroy what we've been building here? 

DRAYMOND

Hell no. You know I'd die for this team.

BOGUT

Heh! Know you'd kill for it, that's true enough. I don't mean to have tall poppy syndrome, mate. You've done bloody well for yourself. Second round pick, impact well beyond the boxscore, fan favorite, all the rotten vegetarians on Twitter love you. You help a squad win a championship. That's why we need you. This squad. You and me and Klay and Steph. The four of us. The rest are expendable shit, well, Iguodala is great, but at the end of the day it's the four of us. Two shooters and two goons. One of us is going to be Finals MVP. You know it, I know it, everyone in the whole world knows it. Even the bloody Kiwis know it, mate.

DRAYMOND

I want to stay with the team, Andrew. You know that.

BOGUT

I know you saw how much money that whacker Klay just got. Don't get me wrong, he's a talented whacker, but he's a whacker nonetheless. You want the brass to know you're worth this money. You want the leverage. Well, let me tell you something, Draymond. Don't forget who you are. You're one of us.

DRAYMOND

I haven't decided anything yet, Andrew. Calm down. Can't we talk about the election or something?

BOGUT

I don't want to talk about the election. I'm not sitting here in the middle of the day in a boozer because this Yank beat that Yank in some state that doesn't matter. 

DRAYMOND

So, what are you doing here?

BOGUT

I'm thinking about which quarter I want to punch Blake Griffin in his balls.

DRAYMOND

That is a coincidence. I was also just thinking that. Except which quarter I want to punch him in the balls.

BOGUT

I think it's best we don't both pick the same quarter.

DRAYMOND

I agree.

BOGUT

I think if that ginger boomer tries to posterize me I'll just grab him by the scrote and knock him into the meanest looking cameraman. He'll have to commission a special pair of budgie smugglers after I'm through with him. 

DRAYMOND

Okay, so you want to throw him into a mean looking camerman after you grab his balls.

BOGUT

Yup.

DRAYMOND

Which quarter though?

BOGUT

Doesn't matter.

DRAYMOND

I'd like to whisper in his ear "Your parents love Taylor more than you" during the third, probably in the first minute or so, you know, help us get us off to a hot start.

BOGUT

Niiiice.

DRAYMOND

Yeah, I figure I'll start shoving him really hard in the second though. 

BOGUT

Draymond, you are a regular bushranger! You remind me of a young me. Except I was the #1 pick. You know that?

DRAYMOND

Damn, Bogey. Of course I knew that! And Marvin Williams went second, Deron Williams went third and-

BOGUT

Chris Paul went fourth. Never trust a man with two first names. Never. Chris Paul...He's a cut snake he is. Meaner that almost anybody that plays the game.

DRAYMOND

Except us.

BOGUT smiles. He raises an empty glass in salute and Draymond clinks his barely touched Screwdriver to it. 

BOGUT

That's right, mate. Except us. Now prove it. What's your plan?

DRAYMOND

I'm going to devour the soul of Matt Barnes tonight. And then I will devour the soul of Chris Douglas-Roberts and I will burn his novelty short shorts on a fire I've lit using the body of Reggie Bullock. If Hedo comes at me I will break his thumbs and put a hex upon his offspring.

BOGUT

Their small forward rotation leaves a bit to be desired, don't it? London to a brick they're going nowhere in the post-season without some trade deadline reinforcements. 

DRAYMOND

Sometimes you give them a taste of their own blood and it gets in their heads.

BOGUT

Right you are, mate. I already told Festus to wink at DeAndre Jordan every time he catches the ball and if winking doesn't work drool a little bit.

DRAYMOND

Every time who catches the ball? Festus or DJ? 

BOGUT

Don't matter. Festus has a little bit of the devil in him, same as us. A few more games to knock the rust off he'll be routinely sending dongers to the never-never.

DRAYMOND

Man, I hear that.

BOGUT

Blake Griffin does not reach the fourth quarter.

DRAYMOND

Blake Griffin does not reach the fourth quarter.

BOGUT

Fourth quarter Steph and Klay clean house. Iguodala and you will shut down Chris Paul. Don't worry about hitting him in his old fella. What must be done must be done.

DRAYMOND

We would have won last year in the playoffs if only you could have been with us, man.

BOGUT

I know, mate.

DRAYMOND

Some people say the Grizzlies and the Clippers are the best rivalry in the NBA.

BOGUT

I want to know what kind of raw uncut heroin those people are snorting and where is it that I can get some. Sure, it's fun watching the Grizzlies treat the Clippers like the technicolor yawn in human form that they are, but seriously, who on the Grizzlies is going to punch Blake Griffin's dick the way we do? Who is going to punch his dick and then convince the world that he actually fouled us? Tony Allen? Zach Randolph? Those blokes are not exactly Crocodile Dundee when it comes to acting.

DRAYMOND

Tonight I will destroy Blake Griffin. Tonight he'll wish he had never made a KIA commercial. Tonight he'll dine in hell.

They toast again. A long pause.

BOGUT

Blake's a pretty nice guy, actually.

DRAYMOND

Yes, I like him alright.

The BARTENDER sighs at that and starts cleaning a beer glass. He thinks of his mother's smile and the long walk back to his apartment. Everything will be okay...if he can just get back home.

warriors by 10

At C: A Boston Sports Post

“Frisch weht der Wind

Der Heimat zu

Mein Irish Kind

Wo weilest du?"

As is the case with all other Boston sports teams, you can only claim to be a fan if you’ve threatened to fight someone over team-slander. But most of the bad things you could say about the Celtics right now happen to be true. Former GQ intern Rajon Rondo does not look as good as we’d like. For those of you defending the man who stands before us, remember this? 

That’s what could-have-been looks like. 

I managed to avoid watching the C’s most of last year, if only because I don’t like to see epic poetry turn into a bildungsroman. But now I’m back, from outer space, and there’s a very little bit of hope. Kelly Olynyk and his gross facial hair still aren’t impressive. Zeller turns out to be the German word for “bench”.

It’s still early days in this year’s education of the never-sufficiently-tanking Celtics, but a light shone in the second half of the Mavericks game. After being thoroughly stomped into the ground by the dark scoring engine that is Dallas in the first, things came together. Marcus Smart looks like he’s been to this particular rodeo before, and nowhere was this more apparent than with his beautiful recovery-to-behind-the-back-assist combo when it was needed most.

Announcers said—like you do—that you shouldn’t get behind by so many points early in the game, but that’s not always controllable against Dallas. The Mavs score at an unmatchable clip unless they’re somehow destabilized, and this happened in much of the third quarter.

It should be noted that there’s a bit of rivalry between Jeff Green and Dirk. Jeff broke Dirk’s face open with an elbow. Dirk does not forgive; Dirk does not forget.

Avery Bradley stepped up to get the team within striking distance, but then, in the blink of an eye, the Dallas lead went from three to ten and it was all but over. Certain demoralizing factors played a role. On a tear, Rondo eurostepped into an offensive foul (~5:30 remaining in the 4th), and it seemed to give Dirk and Co. the deep breath needed to take things home. 

Ultimately, the Celtics were playing a game they couldn’t win. The wheels come off, and you try to caulk the wagons and float. Sometimes the stream is so strong you scrap the wagons, build a flatboat, and ride downstream into better country. Sometimes you build your own little civilization on your raft, and tell yourself the shore doesn’t exist. You learn to catch oceanic birds with bits of glue and fish guts. You develop a wicked tan. As the noise of the sea rocks you to sleep, you dream of Kevin and Paul and Ray, of a better time, of the only Celtics you choose to remember.

Tell me you don't miss it.

-David

Stray thought:
The Mavericks drumline. I don't have a joke for this one.

Jazz-Clippers Preview

if i let you go...do you think you could fly?

huh!

Get ready for the game of the century. The 16th century! This is a game for people who remember the Old Ways. The Clippers come into the season as prohibitive favorites to limp out of the West, but there is always some unexpected anarchy during these early days. Thus, it is no great surprise that the heretofore laughingstock of polite society, the Sacramento Kings, put a six-point whooping on them. As one of our best Scottish proverbs tells us: if you can't get revenge on the goose then get revenge on the gosling. That gosling is the Utah Jazz, a basketball team featuring several men, none of which happen to be Andris Biedrins. May it ever be so.

These are probably the starting line ups, but on the other hand, maybe they aren't? There's always the possibility that Doc Rivers goes insane and starts Big Baby Davis at point-guard and shooting guard or that Enes Kanter falls truly, madly, deeply in love with a pretty girl he sees in the stands right before tip-off and they hit it off and take a romantic stroll to the LaBrea Tar Pits together but at the end of the night she confesses it was actually Dante Exum she liked the entire time and do you think she likes him back? Anyway, the lineups:

Chris Paul	PG	Trey Burke
J.J. Redick	SG	Alec Burks
Matt Barnes	SF	Gordon Hayward
Blake Griffin	PF	Enes Kanter
DeAndre Jordan	C	Derrick Favors

What will happen in this game is anyone's guess, though here are my particular guesses. 

These are the faces of Utah's big man tandem, still getting to know each other, still trying to understand one another's space and spaces, as they behold the first lob of the night. Enes takes it especially hard, since it was he, sweet young man from Turkey that he is, that Blake Griffin how do you say, posterizes. Derrick Favors, always sort of a stoic dude, tells himself not to get even, but to get mad.

This is Quin Snyder when he sees the Jazz storm back to take a slim lead right before halftime. This curious rally was more curiously led by Steve Novak, who is not the stretch 4 the Utah Jazz need, but the stretch 4 the Utah Jazz have. Every time Novak nails a three Enes Kanter hops off the bench and pumps his huge fist in the air. Snyder then tells the guys to pick up the pace, and is caught mic'd up in a huddle revealing secrets of NBA coaching, telling the guys to "push the pace and get easy baskets in transition, and to do the thing where you grab the ball after someone misses it."

The Jazz have taken a ten point lead midway through the 3rd quarter. They are already dumping gatorade on each other, high fiving, low fiving, fist bumping, shaking hands solemnly. Quin Snyder tells them to calm down and that "there is a lot of game left" but he too cracks a tiny smile, for he knows that one day, perhaps very soon, this team may be halfway decent. Gordon Hayward runs his hand through his hair and is actually nice to the kid trying to hand him a towel. He's a playmaker. He was born to get out in the open floor and run.  It used to be that you couldn't run in a Jazz uniform without tripping over Al Jefferson or Paul Millsap. Perhaps those days are over. Perhaps...

But then Chris Paul makes four long-twos in rapid succession and Blake Griffin tumbles to the hoop for some mildly upsetting dunks. Utah's entire frontline is disrespected. Hedo spits in Trey Burke's general direction and a few technicals are called. Steve Novak misses the free throw. Blake dunks five more times. A man in the stands chokes, but manages to spit up the pretzel. His wife rubs his back the rest of the night. They voted for Jon Huntsman.

"I'm so happy we won the game!" J.J. Reddick tells Matt Barnes after the buzzer sounds and the Utah Jazz slink off the court like beaten curs. Matt Barnes thinks back to the days when he and this nice looking boy-man used to be on the Orlando Magic together, when they would stay up all hours of the night talking about the future, and space technology, and how they wish summers could last forever, and how Dwight Howard had a staring problem. 

Matt Barnes finally just musses Reddick's hair and says "Yeah." Then he walks to the showers, whistling a Gladys Knight and the Pips song. 

"Matt Barnes has a strange and dark road to walk," Doc Rivers says to a very sweaty J.J. Reddick.

 J.J. then comes out of a trance and turns to his coach and says, "My middle name is Clay. My middle name...is Clay."

The Utah Jazz go out to In-N-Out Burger. Rudy Gobert's order is all wrong, but the team is more or less happy with their performance. They showed promise, they showed they belonged, they showed up. This team has a lot of talent, a lot of guts, more brains than usual for a young team, and a spirit that is at least above average. It's a long season, but they've already made their point. Even the wretched need not go quiet into this long dark hellish night.