By Charlie Thaddeus | Pounding The Rock (PtR), 2025-01-15 02:36:34
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
圣安东尼奥在最后阶段焕发生机。
能看篮球比赛的感觉真好。现在洛杉矶发生的一切都骇人听闻，其规模之大令人难以理解，而且像往常一样，当世界的恐怖开始逼近时，体育往往会成为一种让人安定的力量。它并不能解决任何问题，也不能挽回任何损失，它只是让我们感觉良好，哪怕只是一小会儿。有时候，这就是你所能祈求的全部。
纯粹从篮球层面来说，我需要马刺展现出一些活力。注意，不是很多，而是一点点。最近这一系列对阵实力不错的球队的比赛，对于一群仍在摸索的球员来说，本来应该是一场考验，而这场考验迄今为止已经明确证明，他们确实仍在“摸索”的过程中。这并不令人意外，但我认为可以公平地说，这有点令人失望。进步当然不是线性的，虽然毫无疑问马刺本赛季取得了进步，但我认为我们都渴望看到下一个小小的迹象，表明事情仍在朝着正确的方向发展。
上半场很沉闷。嗯，也不是沉闷——也许只是平淡无奇。呆板。苍白。乏味。随便挑一个不带感的描述词。他们的表现不算“糟糕”，但也似乎没有太多活力。考虑到他们这一周都待在酒店里，而外面的真实世界却在肆虐，这当然是可以预料的。随着湖人将领先优势扩大到两位数，我已经准备放弃了。这场比赛不会是他们找到感觉的比赛，在这种情况下，期望他们找到感觉也很奇怪。
这里可能包含着关于耐心之类的教训。我不知道。也许就像你疯狂地把房子翻了个底朝天寻找丢失的物品，只有当你放弃希望时，它才会出现在你的眼前。马刺在下半场反弹了。事实上，他们不仅仅是反弹——他们活过来了。
看到他们像这样突然转变，简直不可思议。不知从哪里冒出来，我们的球员变成了防守端极具侵略性的庞然大物，不停地追逐着湖人。是不是有人向他们透露了防守端的强度会让对手难以得分的秘密？我喜欢这样。多么大的调整！
我们总是这样说，马刺并没有垮掉什么的；他们只是还没有完全成型。还缺少一些拼图。没有人确切知道马刺的下一个阶段会是什么样子，但与此同时，我们将继续坐在场边，看着球员们继续学习如何夜复一日地打完一个完整的NBA赛季。克里斯·保罗(Chris Paul)会对他们大喊大叫，哈里森·巴恩斯(Harrison Barnes)会树立一个好榜样，而年轻球员会努力追随他们的脚步。大多数时候，他们都会达不到要求，但偶尔，一切都会水到渠成。
那就是我们看到第四节发生的事情——一切都水到渠成，投篮命中，铜墙铁壁般的防守，转换进攻得分，球的转移，应有尽有。每场比赛都做到这一点的难度非常高，而这支球队能够以相当不错的频率做到这一点，这是一种我可能没有足够感激的奇迹。
说了这么多，归根结底，能花一个晚上看些人打篮球的感觉真好。哪怕只是一小会儿。
赛后总结
- 我从2011年到2021年在洛杉矶生活——将近整整十年。这不是我的家乡，但在很长一段时间里，它无疑是我的家。过去一周在电视上看到那个地方被大火吞噬，我感到无比悲伤。我几乎无法用语言表达。如此大规模的破坏令人难以置信，我在这里说的任何话都无法让情况好转。我知道我们都时不时地嘲笑洛杉矶——包括我自己——但它真的是一个特别的地方，充满了许多不可思议的人。我希望，在经历了所有这些痛苦之后，在接下来的几个月和几年里，他们能够找到平静和力量，我们都将努力帮助这座城市重建。
- 昨晚关于这支球队的防守努力，我突然开窍了，我敢肯定，比我聪明的人已经注意到了——但不管怎样。我认为文班亚马(Victor Wembanyama)在防守端的实力，虽然显然是一个优势，但也可能会让我们的球员产生一种虚假的安全感。文班实在是太擅长弥补每个人的错误了，以至于其他人可以偷工减料。即使这不是一个有意识的决定，我认为球员们很容易在努力程度上有所懈怠，因为他们知道身后有一张7英尺4英寸的安全网。他们经常这样做都能侥幸过关，因为，你知道，他真的就是那么出色。但这会养成习惯。他无法解决所有问题，而且他也不总是在场上。有时你会看到有人太随意地让对手从底线突破，然后半秒钟后才意识到身后的查克·巴塞(Chuck Bassey)而不是文班。像往常一样，除了指出这一点并在黑板上写上“不要这样做”以及下面画三条横线之外，我不知道该如何解决这个问题。也许加一个感叹号？这可能是留到赛季末再做的事情。
- 我不知道克里斯·保罗是如何在本周家庭发生这么多事情的情况下，还能全身心投入比赛的，但是，伙计，看他打球真是一种享受。
- 斯蒂芬·卡斯尔(Stephon Castle)的进攻爆发得很不错。我知道我们不想依赖他做到这一点，但偶尔看到他展示一下这种实力也很酷。我还想利用这个篇幅，再次大声地问：“我们到底为什么要放走奇普·恩格尔兰(Chip Engelland)？！?!?！”我只是……我永远也想不明白。要留住马刺队史上（除蒂姆-托尼-马努-波波之外）最重要的人物，多少钱才算太多？每次想到这件事，我都想在墙上打个洞。然后我又想起，他不仅离开了，他还去了俄克拉荷马城，把他的所有小秘密都教给了我们的长期对手，我又想在墙上再打一个洞。我不确定我有足够的墙来处理奇普·恩格尔兰这件事。
WWL赛后新闻发布会
- 湖人球衣上印着“LakeShow”是不是挺有意思的？我觉得挺有意思的。
- 谢谢你问我这个问题，这是一个非常好的问题。答案是“当然”。当然，他们在球衣上印着LakeShow没问题。问题不在于此。问题是这些球衣在其他所有方面都很糟糕。这个联盟的顶级球队，位于世界上最具创造力的城市之一，却拥有看起来像是三天前刚拿到Adobe订阅的人用Photoshop拼凑出来的球衣？黑色尴尬地渐变为紫色？这条混搭的短裤？这太令人失望了。我才不在乎它上面写着Lakeshow。
- 啊。所以……你认为这不有意思？
- 我只是希望，如果他们要把所有这些城市版球衣强加给我们，至少应该在全联盟范围内强制要求，不允许它们“从设计的角度来看既无聊又容易理解”。
- 这似乎很难执行。
- 那是因为他们还没让我来负责。我仍然有空，而且我的收费也很合理。打电话给我，亚当！
点击查看原文：What We Learned from the Spurs Win over the Lakers
What We Learned from the Spurs Win over the Lakers
San Antonio comes alive down the stretch.
It just felt nice to be watching basketball. Everything going on in L.A. right now is horrifying on a scale that’s hard to even comprehend and, as usual, when the horrors of the world start closing in, sports tend to find a way to be a centering force. It doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t bring back anything that was lost. It just makes us feel good, if only for a little bit. Sometimes that’s all you can ask for.
Purely on a basketball level, I needed the Spurs to show me a little life. Not a ton, mind you, but a little. This recent stretch against a decent lineup of teams promised to be a test for a group of guys who are trying to figure it out, and that test has so far definitively proved that they are indeed still in the “figuring it out” process. It’s nothing too surprising, but I think it’s fair to say it’s been a bit disappointing. Progress certainly isn’t linear and, while there’s no doubt the Spurs have made progress this season, I think we’re all itching for that next little indicator that things are still headed in the right direction.
The first half was grim. Well, not grim — maybe just lackluster. Staid. Pallid. Blah. Pick your uninspiring descriptor. They weren’t playing “bad,” but they also didn’t seem to have much spark. That’s certainly to be expected, given the week they’ve had hanging out in a hotel while the real world raged on outside. As the Lakers pushed out to a double-digit lead, I was ready to pack it in. This wasn’t going to be the game where they found it, and it would be weird for me to expect them to, under the circumstances.
There’s probably a lesson in here somewhere about patience or something. I don’t know. Maybe it’s like that thing where you’re frantically tearing your house apart looking for a lost item and only when you’ve given up hope does it turn up under your nose. The Spurs rallied in the second half. In fact, they didn’t just rally—they came alive.
It was almost bizarre to see them flip a switch like that. Out of nowhere, our guys morphed into this hyper-aggressive behemoth on defense that wouldn’t stop hounding the Lakers at every turn. Did someone clue them in on the secret tip that intensity on the defensive end makes it difficult for your opponent to score? I loved it. What an adjustment!
We say this all the time, but the Spurs aren’t broken or anything like that; they’re just not fully formed. Some pieces are missing. No one’s exactly sure what the next phase of the Spurs is going to look like, but in the meantime, we’re just going to be sitting here watching guys continue to learn how to play a full NBA season night after night. Chris Paul is going to yell at them, Harrison Barnes is going to set a good example, and the kids are going to try to follow their lead. Most of the time, they’ll fall short, but every once in a while, it’ll all click into place.
That’s when we get to see something like that fourth quarter happen — everything falling into place, shots dropping, a brick-wall defense, transition buckets, ball movement, the whole shebang. The degree of difficulty in doing that every game is incredibly high, and the fact that this team can pull it off at a decent clip is a sort of miracle I’m probably not grateful enough for.
All of that being said, at the end of the day, it just felt nice to spend an evening watching some guys play basketball. If only for a little bit.
Takeaways
- I lived in Los Angeles from 2011 through 2021 — almost ten years exactly. It’s not where I’m from, but it was certainly home for a very long time. It has been impossibly sad to watch that place go up in flames on TV this past week. I can barely put it into words. That amount of destruction is so hard to fathom, and nothing I can say here will make any of it better. I know we all kind of clown on L.A. from time to time — myself included — but it really is a special place full of so many incredible people. I hope that, through all of this pain, they’re able to find peace and strength in the coming months and years as we all try to help put that city back together.
- Something clicked for me about this team’s defensive effort last night that, I’m sure, smarter people than me have noticed — but whatever. I think Victor Wembanyama’s prowess on that side of the floor, while obviously an advantage, can lure our guys into a false sense of security. Vic is simply so good at cleaning up everyone’s messes that it allows people to cut corners. Even if it’s not a conscious decision, I think it’s just easy for guys to pull a punch here and there from an effort perspective because they know they have a 7’4” safety net behind them. They get away with it a lot because, you know, he really is that good. But it’s habit-forming. He can’t fix everything, and he’s also not always on the floor. Sometimes you’ll see someone get too casual letting their guy blow by on the baseline, then realize half a second too late that it’s Chuck Bassey back there instead of Vic. As usual, I’m not sure how to fix this other than to point it out and write on the chalkboard, “Don’t do that,” with three big lines underneath. Maybe an exclamation point? That might be something to save for late in the season.
- I have no idea how Chris Paul was able to compartmentalize everything going on with his family this week and still go out there and ball, but, man, it was a pleasure to watch him do it.
- That was a nice little offensive burst from Stephon Castle. I know we don’t want to rely on him for that, but it’s pretty cool to see him flex that muscle every now and then. I’d also like to use this space to wonder aloud, for the umpteenth time, “Why the hell did we ever let Chip Engelland leave!!!” I just… I will never get it. What amount of money was too much to keep maybe the most important figure in Spurs franchise history (Non-Tim-Tony-Manu-Pop division)? It makes me want to put a hole in my wall every time I think about it. Then I remember that not only is he gone, he’s in OKC teaching our long-term rivals all his little secrets, and I want to put yet another hole in the wall. I’m not sure I have enough walls to handle this Chip Engelland situation.
WWL Post Game Press Conference
- Is it kind of fun that the Lakers have “LakeShow” on their jerseys? I thought it was kind of fun.
- Thanks for asking me this, it’s a really good question. The answer is “sure”. Sure, its fine that they have LakeShow on their jersey. That’s not the problem. The problem is that those jerseys are lame in every single other way. How does this leagues premier franchise, located in one of the most creative cities in the world, have a jersey that looks like it was thrown together in photoshop by someone who was handed an Adobe subscription three days ago? The black awkwardly fading into purple? This mishmash shorts? It’s just disappointing. I could care less about it saying Lakeshow.
- Ah. So…you do NOT think it’s fun?
- I just wish that if they were going to shove all these City Edition uniforms down our throats that they would at least have a league wide mandate that they weren’t allowed to be “boring and intelligible from a design perspective”
- That seems like a hard thing to enforce.
- Well that’s just because they haven’t asked me be in charge yet. I’m still available and my rates are pretty reasonable. Call me Adam!
By Charlie Thaddeus, via Pounding The Rock