By Charlie Thaddeus | Pounding The Rock (PtR), 2026-01-12 16:34:08
我拒绝过度解读这场比赛。
听见没？我不会这么干，也绝不能这么干。哪怕面临罚款、流放甚至死亡的威胁，我也绝不会这么做。每个人都得有自己的原则，而我的原则就是：绝不因为马刺在一月份背靠背第二晚的客场比赛中挥霍了19分的领先优势，就去过度解读。
因为我们到底在谈论什么呢？
马刺现在变菜了？他们突然之间就不“关键”了？文班亚马 (Wembanyama) 应该去打替补？我们应该把所有人都交易掉，然后洗洗睡了？你告诉我，因为说真的，我不知道该从这场比赛中得出什么结论。我感觉就像我的猫刚在我家门口扔了只死鸽子，然后满怀期待地盯着我。
我想远远逃离这场比赛。我想把它埋进一个又深又黑的洞里。我想把它送到一个遥远的农场，在那里它可以和其他那些我不想再回忆的糟糕失利一起，更自由地奔跑。感觉就像，趟进这片泥潭，试图从中筛选出什么意义，不会有任何好结果。如果昨晚在标靶中心暴露出的那些刺眼缺陷是真实存在的，那么你可以放心，我们未来还会再次看到它们，届时我们自然要去面对。而如果这只是一次偶然的失常呢？那嘿，就只是一次失常。这不是你要找的机器人。往前走吧，往前走。
然而不幸的是，和你们中的许多人一样，我确实看了这场比赛，所以要忘记那些大空位三分球接连打铁、以及安东尼·爱德华兹 (Anthony Edwards) 上演英雄主义戏码，最终导致领先优势一点点流逝的画面，并不像我想的那么简单。我可以客观地知道，马刺在午夜时分从波士顿起飞，在黎明破晓时才降落在明尼阿波利斯。我也可以理性地将这两点之间的红线串联起来，并得出结论：在这种情况下，凶手很可能就是我们的老朋友——疲劳先生。
但球迷的情感并非理性之物。我们都懂。从我们坐在沙发上的优越位置来看，我们真正能看到的，只是“我们那神奇后场三人组的表现开始下滑”这张散点图上的又一个数据点。我们看到，相比于替补出场，当文班亚马首发时，球队在寻找节奏方面举步维艰。我们看到，失误问题再次抬头。所有这些都有无数的借口，但眼睛是雪亮的。这场失利令人沮丧。
不过，我好像偏离了我的核心任务，再次强调，这个任务就是坚决不进行任何解读。我们必须把目光移开。将我们的视线投向远方的地平线，忽略那些可能根本无关紧要的小颠簸，我说了别担心！
这是一年中最艰难的一段时期。天气寒冷，旅途劳顿，全明星周末也近在眼前。季中锦标赛带来的层层快感已经消退。*（席尔瓦先生，您有空的时候随时可以把支票给我。）*最重要的是，这支马刺队看起来有些精疲力尽。他们在十二月被打的那一针肾上腺素已经开始失效，他们现在看起来不像是一支能够夜复一夜、在48分钟内都保持全力的队伍。他们需要打个盹。我也需要打个盹。读者朋友们，我估摸着，你大概也需要打个盹。
所以，让我们……深呼吸。让我们练习一下正念。让我们试着不要 抓狂 。这场比赛可能说明了一些问题，但至关重要的是，它也可能什么都说明不了。你真的想错过这个不让这场比赛影响你心情的机会吗？我想你不会。正如哲学家塞内卡曾经写道的，“我们常常是受惊多于受伤；我们因想象而受的苦多于因现实。”
不清楚一位古罗马哲学家为何以及如何对观看NBA赛季中期比赛有如此深刻的了解，但我认为我们在这里应该听他的，主要是因为我没有精力去做别的事情了。
一些感悟：
- 好吧，那么。上次我为这个网站写稿时，我非常明确地表示“投射不是这支球队的问题，别再冲我嚷嚷了”。那是个很好的观点，一个强有力的观点。我说出这话时信心满满。从那以后马刺做了什么呢？嗯，他们只是继续用一种非常酷的方式来证明我是个傻瓜，而且投射实际上可能是我们想要解决的问题。
- 这倒不是说我们已经断崖式下滑了，只是感觉每个人都在同一时间以一种非常明显的方式冷却了下来。我们每晚的得分仍然在110分左右，但我们做到这一点的方式是：全队投篮命中率跌至四成出头，三分命中率更是只有二十多，这与赛季早些时候相比是一个巨大的转变。出手机会还在，但球就是投不进，尤其是后卫和侧翼球员。是他们投不进，还是只是现在投不进？我们该怎么办？可能什么也别做！寄希望于最好的结果吧！来吧，和我一起着眼长远，希望我那个“别再冲我嚷嚷得分问题”的观点最终能成为赢家！
- 我那不断增长的“宿敌”名单上又多了森林狼，他们总能不知为何地把我们收拾得服服帖帖，原因我也不太明白。他们和太阳队一起，成为我季后赛里完全不想碰到的球队，因为他们让我心里发毛。也许他们都拥有那种独特的组合——身体对抗性和明星球员原始的投射能力，这让我们很难应对，尤其是在我们自己投不进球的时候？我不知道。让他们离远点。给我一支我们能欺负的球队，比如，我不知道，雷霆？我查查笔记……这不可能对。
- 我有点不敢相信我们明天还要去打雷霆。对于那场比赛，我可能得先做好心理准备。不知道你们怎么样，但从圣诞节那天起，我这张嘴就开出了一堆关于雷霆的空头支票，理所当然地以为我们能轻松兑现，而从那以后情况变得有点……“一言难尽”。可能没什么好担心的。马刺加油！
- 说点正经的，向明尼阿波利斯及其周边社区的人们致以深切的关怀，他们再次经历了一段痛苦的动荡与不安。祝愿你们在未来的日子里能拥有力量、安全和些许平静。
赛后“学到了什么”新闻发布会
– 看起来你正处在一个艰难的境地，你的任务是直面一些你根本不想看的东西。
– 是的，当然。当讨论的比赛是我们所有人都为之兴奋的时候，这份工作就容易多了。你知道吗，当你不需要关注失利时，要忽略它们是多么容易的一件事？
– 呃，是的。对，我想大多数人都知道。
– 没错。所以。嗯。是的。我能做的最好的事情就是恳求人们不要像我一样。尽他们所能快点跑开。去读本书！吃个三明治！接触大自然！去做点别的任何事！你为什么还在这里自怨自艾？
– 呃，现在听起来你几乎是在积极鼓励人们不要阅读我们正在浏览的这个网站，这感觉有点自相矛盾。
– 不，等等，先别急。你得阅读这个网站。这很重要。来点击所有的链接，阅读所有的文字。我们在这上面付出了很多努力。
– 所以，要参与、阅读、与网站互动，但不要真正关注所说的内容？不要把它往心里去？
-与网站互动。阅读文字。关注我们的才智与智慧。向你的朋友、家人和同事称赞我们的作品。告诉每个人我们有多棒，并说服你认识的每个人通过Venmo给这个网站的每位作者转账五美元。但同时，你知道，别担心马刺输球的事。老兄，放轻松点。没那么难。
– 是的，没错。够简单的。
由生成式 AI 翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
点击查看原文：What We Learned from the Spurs loss to the Wolves
What We Learned from the Spurs loss to the Wolves
I refuse to read too much into this one.
You hear me? Won’t do it. Can’t do it. Under threat of fines, banishment, or even death, I simply will not do it. Every person has to have a code, and mine is that I won’t read too much into the Spurs blowing a 19-point lead on the road on the second night of a back-to-back in January.
Because what are we talking about here?
Are the Spurs bad now? Are they suddenly not “clutch?” Should Wembanyama come off the bench? Should we trade everyone and call it a day? You tell me, because truly, I don’t know what the takeaway is supposed to be. I feel like my cat just dropped a dead pigeon at my doorstep and is now staring at me expectantly.
I want to run far away from this game. I want to bury it in a deep, dark hole. I want to take it to a farm upstate where it can have more freedom to run around with all the other bad losses I don’t want to think about. It just feels like no good can come from wading into this swamp and trying to sift through it for meaning. If the glaring flaws on display at the Target Center last night are real, then you can be assured we’ll see them again down the road and we’ll just have to reckon with that when the time comes. And if this was just a blip? Then hey, just a blip. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Move along. Move along.
Now unfortunately, like many of you, I did actually watch this game, so the matter of having the images of that lead slipping away amid a barrage of bricked, wide-open threes and Anthony Edwards heroics isn’t as simple as I’d like. I can objectively know that the Spurs flew out of Boston around midnight and landed in Minneapolis at the crack of dawn. I can rationally connect the red string between those two dots and conclude that the killer, in this case, is likely our old friend Dr. Fatigue.
But fandom isn’t a rational thing. We know this. From our privileged position on the couch, all we can really see is another data point on the “play from our trio of WonderGuards has started to dip” scatterplot. We’re seeing the team struggle to find its rhythm when Wembanyama starts versus when he comes in off the bench. We’re seeing the turnover issue rear its head again. Excuses abound for all of this, but the eyes see what they see. It was a bummer.
I’m getting away from my core mission here though, which, again, is to decisively not read into this. We simply must look away. Cast our gaze out upon the horizon and ignore the little bumps that are probably nothing anyway, I said don’t worry about it!
This is a difficult stretch of the year. It’s cold. The travel is hard. The All-Star break is nigh. The cascading highs of the NBA Cup have worn off. (Mr. Silver, I’ll take that check whenever you have a second.) More than anything, this Spurs team looks a little spent. Whatever adrenaline shot they got hit with during December has started to wear off, and they just don’t look like a group that can bring it for a full 48, night after night, right now. They need a nap. I need a nap. Reader, I think in all likelihood, you also need a nap.
So let’s just… breathe. Let’s practice some mindfulness. Let’s try not to FREAK OUT. This game might be something but also, crucially, it might be nothing at all. Do you really want to miss out on your chance to not let this game affect you? I didn’t think so. As the philosopher Seneca once wrote, “We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more in imagination than in reality.”
Unclear how or why an ancient Roman philosopher knew so much about watching mid-season NBA basketball, but I think we should listen to him here, mostly because I don’t have the energy to do otherwise.
Takeaways:
- Alright, so. Last time I wrote for this site I said something very definitive about how “shooting is not a problem on this team, stop yelling at me about it.” It was a good take. A strong take. I felt confident when I dished it out. What have the Spurs done since then? Well they’ve simply continued to make a really cool argument that I’m dumb and that shooting actually might be something we want to address.
- It’s not like we’ve fallen off a cliff or anything, it just feels like everyone cooled off in a very noticeable way at the exact same time. We’re still scoring around 110-ish points a night, but we’re just doing it while shooting in the low-40s from the field and the mid-20s from three, which is a big shift from earlier in the season. The looks are still there but they’re just not falling, particularly from the guards and wings. Can they not shoot or can they just not shoot right now? What do we do with that? Probably nothing! Hope for the best! Come play the long game with me and hope my “stop yelling at me about scoring” take comes out a winner!
- Adding the Timberwolves to my growing list of enemires that inexplicably give us the business for reasons I don’t fully understand. They join the Suns as teams I simply do not want to see in the playoffs because they give me the heebie-jeebies. Maybe they both just have that special cocktail of physicality and raw shot-making from a star player that’s difficult for us to counteract, especially when the shots aren’t falling? I don’t know. Keep them away. Give me a team we can bully like, I don’t know, the Thunder? Checking my notes… that can’t be right.
- I kind of can’t believe we have to go play the Thunder tomorrow. I’m maybe a little bit bracing for impact on that one. Not sure about you guys, but my mouth has been writing an awful lot of checks about the Thunder since Christmas Day, just assuming we’d be able to cash them, and things have been a touch… “yikes” since then. Probably nothing to worry about. Go Spurs!
- On a more serious note, much love to the people of Minneapolis and the surrounding communities, who are once again navigating a painful stretch of upheaval and unrest. Wishing you strength, safety, and some measure of peace in the days ahead.
WWL Post Game Press Conference
– Seems like you’re in a difficult position of being tasked with the job of looking directly at something you have no desire to look at.
– Yeah, for sure. This job is way easier when the game in question is something we’re all psyched about. Do you have any idea how easy it is to just ignore losses when you don’t have to pay attention to them?
– Um, yes. Yeah, I think most people do.
– Right. Well. So yeah. Best I can do is implore people to not be like me. Run away as fast as they can. Read a book! Eat a sandwich! Touch grass! Go do anything else! Why are you here wallowing?
– Well, now it almost sounds like you’re actively encouraging people not to read the website we’re on, which feels a little counterintuitive.
– No, now, hold on. You gotta read the website. That’s important. Come click all the links and read all the words. We work hard on this.
– So engage, read, interact with the site, but don’t actually focus on what’s being said? Don’t internalize it?
-Engage with the site. Read the words. Focus on our wit and wisdom. Laud our works to your friends, family, and coworkers. Tell everyone how great we are and convince everyone you know to Venmo each writer of this site five American dollars. But also, you know, don’t worry about the Spurs losing games. Just be chill, dude. It’s not that hard.
– Yeah, right. Simple enough.
By Charlie Thaddeus, via Pounding The Rock