By Charlie Thaddeus | Pounding The Rock (PtR), 2026-03-04 16:00:00
如果我们中有人还在担心周日在纽约那场失利留下的阴影，那么这场比赛就是绝佳的试金石，能准确揭示你在悲观与乐观的天平上究竟倾向哪一端。你可以看着他们以 55% 的投篮命中率狂砍 131 分，然后如释重负地松一口气。你可以看着 18 记三分球雨落在费城这座“友爱之城”的集锦，心里想着：“这就对了，重回正轨。”看到我们的小伙子们反复冲击篮筐，同时限制住费城那对充满活力的后场组合，这足以让你在名为“圣安东尼奥嘉年华”色彩的被窝里安然入眠，继续追逐季后赛荣耀的美梦。这是一条你可以选择的心理路径。
你也可以选择听从内心的“阴暗面”。
除了泰雷斯·马克西 (Tyrese Maxey) 和 V.J. 埃奇科姆 (V.J. Edgecombe)，76 人昨晚派出的阵容简直像是把球童都拉上场了。他们让安德烈·德拉蒙德 (Andre Drummond) 的残影试图去对抗维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama)。我很难想起还有哪场比赛的播音员会在转播过程中如此频繁地提到“身材矮小”这个词。这只是一场“注水”的比赛。一场表演赛。一个让我们的小伙子们在回到德克萨斯之前进行有氧运动的无意义借口。这场比赛由于缺乏悬念，反而进一步凸显了上周末在纽约聚光灯最盛之时，球队的表现是多么令人掉以轻心。
或者随你怎么想！选择你自己的冒险。我又不是你妈。
听着，我甚至不太确定自己到底站在哪一边，但我认为最好的做法是“专注细节，微调误差 (aim small and miss small)”。这既不是一次辉煌的状态回归，也不是一场彻底的骗局。它……你知道的，它还算不错。
只要有机会把对手打出球馆，我总是很高兴看到马刺队能做到这一点。本赛季我们见过太多次他们在对阵实力较弱的对手时“玩弄食物”，那真是令人火大。我非常欣慰我们现在似乎在这个问题上达成了共识，并将“稳妥取胜”作为首要任务之一。别去管那些细节，击败眼前的对手，然后迈向下一个。
如果说马刺在这场比赛中展示了什么，那就是他们在接下来的“硬仗”中所需的心态和性情。他们本可以垂头丧气地进入这场比赛。我的意思是，这是一个漫长客场之旅的最后一站，对手表现平平，并没有像“点燃刚铎的烽火”那样逼你非得出色发挥。而且这还是在一场让他们丢了面子的比赛之后。我确信对他们来说，把这场比赛看作无关痛痒是件很容易的事——只是一场比赛而已，赶紧打完回家。
我大概率会原谅他们。
正如我们所见，他们并没有那样做。他们打出了气势。他们在防守端飞身扑救。他们拼抢篮板。他们到处展示积极的拼搏精神。他们显然是场上更有天赋的球队，但他们并没有仅仅依靠天赋来赢球。如果这是一场练习赛，那他们就是以正式比赛的速度完成了每一个动作。也许我们不会在祖先的殿堂里传颂这场比赛，但这样的表现正是那些最终走向伟大的球队基因中的一部分。
作为一名球迷，我已经完全准备好迈向下一个阶段了。现在的每一场常规赛都让我有一种填报税表的枯燥感。我希望季后赛昨天就开始。距离我上次看到我们的小伙子们打一场真正的季后赛已经过去了快七年，我的身体已经准备好了。我正向前看，我分心了，我在做所有被告知不该做的事情。来吧！快开始吧！
值得庆幸的是，这支球队似乎比我有耐心一点。他们一场接一场地打。不卑不亢，不急不躁。赢下下一场。专注细节，微调误差。
此乃正道。
要点总结
- 附加赛 (Play-In) 不算数。别跑来这儿跟我说什么“马刺在 2022 年进了季后赛”，除非你想让我不再把你当回事。
- 这场比赛的能量感很有趣。原则上讲，由于我们没能看到真正的火星撞地球的对决，气氛显然有些消沉。我的意思是，哈里森·巴恩斯 (Harrison Barnes) 都不在阵容里？谁要是翘掉这场不看，我都能原谅！尽管如此，比赛中还是有那么几段奇怪的时间点打得很火热。节奏会突然在攻防两端加快，感觉每个人都在全速奔跑、强投三分和上演扣篮。这很令人兴奋！虽然谈不上是多伟大的篮球比赛，但确实很有观赏性。有点像看着一个闹鬼的购物车冲下坡，撞向两个抬着大玻璃板的工人。会发生什么？那些家伙哪来的？那辆车到底还有什么未了的心愿！？
- 我很享受卡特·布莱恩特 (Carter Bryant) 本赛季的进化。我记得赛季初看他打球时，我曾老成持重地对自己说：“这孩子不错，但还没那个味儿。”我就像完全忽略了一个 20 岁球员在打他最初的 NBA 比赛时，可能还不是成品的可能性。有趣吧。他最近看起来棒极了，显然已经在轮换阵容中找到了自己的定位：上场拉开空间，冲抢篮板，并确保在首发休息时能量不掉。所以，基本上正是我们选中他时希望他做的事情？想象一下！定期提醒：请无视我在这里说的任何话。（除非最终证明我是正确的，那时你应该理所当然地称赞我是个天才）。
- NBC 的怀旧转播有趣吗？大概吧。我们是否觉得 NBC 总体上在过分讨好我们这些“大龄千禧一代”，甚至让人觉得他们快要把我们送进养老院了？有一点！我真的很喜欢怀旧情结，就像其他人一样，但在“NBC 时代的 NBA”这个点上，我真心觉得：“行了！《Roundball Rock》很棒！迈克尔·乔丹 (Michael Jordan) 曾经在这个台打球！我们懂了！够了！”说真的伙计们，对自己创造新事物的能力多点信心吧。你们每年支付大约 25 亿美元购买这些比赛的版权。我非常愿意只收一半的钱帮你们弄套崭新的视觉包装。联系我。
WWL 赛后新闻发布会
—— 当你看到 76 人的伤病名单后，你考虑过让你的首发阵容轮休吗？
—— 是的，我们在内部讨论过，但最终决定没有理由改变我们的比赛计划。归根结底，我们的工作是写出一篇 WWL 专栏，无论对手是谁。我们不能让对手来决定我们的行事方式。
—— 但你担心伤病吗，特别是在一场可能被认为是“注水”的比赛中？
—— 嗯，明确地说，我一直都在担心伤病。这一直是首要关注点。你打字时可能会拉伤手指肌肉，或者我不确定，赛季进行到这个阶段你的背部会僵硬，突然间到了季后赛你就有大麻烦了。我知道每个人在赛季那个阶段都是带伤作战，但你仍然希望展现出自己最好的一面。
—— 尽管有这些顾虑，今晚依然没有诱惑去只派替补阵容出场吗？
—— 是的，就像我说的，我无时无刻不在担心伤病。这并非这个季节所特有。所以对我们整个组织来说，最好的做法就是照常营业，让其他事情顺其自然。
—— 有传言称编辑团队向作者施压，要求他们在这样的夜晚带伤上阵，这是真的吗？
—— 我不会对联盟办公室的任何事情发表评论。我们一直保持着良好的合作关系，我相信他们会尊重我们的决定。
—— 社交媒体上有传言称你告诉他们：“我的过敏反应真的很严重，今天早上不想写了，”而他们的回应是——我直接引用一段话——“快写吧，鼻涕虫。”有何评论？
—— 我来这里不是为了理会推特上的那些废话。
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。
点击查看原文：What We Learned from the Spurs win over the Sixers
What We Learned from the Spurs win over the Sixers
If any of us were worried about the lingering aftereffects from that loss in New York on Sunday, this was a great litmus test to reveal exactly where you fall on the half-full, half-empty divide of life’s great optimism scale. You can look at the 131 points they scored on 55% shooting from the field and breathe a sigh of relief. You can watch the highlights of 18 threes raining down in the City of Brotherly Love and think to yourself, “There we go, back on track.” Our guys repeatedly getting to the basket, all while holding Philly’s electric guard duo in check, can rock you to sleep and tuck you into your Fiesta-colored sheets while you drift off to continue your dreams of postseason glory. This is a route available to you.
You can also listen to your demons.
Beyond Maxey and Edgecombe, the Sixers rolled out their ball boys last night. They had the ghost of Andre Drummond trying to wrestle with Wembanyama. I’d be hard-pressed to find a time I heard the announcers say the word “undersized” more over the course of a broadcast. This was a throwaway. An exhibition. A meaningless excuse for our guys to get some cardio in before returning to Texas. The lack of stakes in this one only serving to highlight how thoroughly the ball got dropped when the lights were shining their brightest in New York over the weekend.
Or whatever! Choose your own adventure. I’m not your mom.
Look, I’m not even exactly sure where I land on this one, but I think the best course of action is to aim small and miss small. This wasn’t a glorious return to form. It wasn’t a complete sham. It was… you know. It was fine.
Given the opportunity to run a team out of the gym, I’m always happy to see the Spurs do it. We’ve seen them play with their food plenty this season against inferior opponents, and it’s infuriating. I’m over the moon that we seem to have gotten our act together on that front and decided to make Taking Care of Business one of the top priorities. Don’t worry about the details. Play whoever is in front of you. Move on to the next.
If the Spurs did anything in this game, they showed an attitude and a temperament that they’re going to need in the coming wars. They could’ve come into this one a little hangdog. I mean, it’s the last game of a long road trip against an opponent that’s not exactly lighting the Beacons of Gondor and calling for a command performance. It’s coming on the heels of a game where they got humbled a little bit. I’m sure it would’ve been easy for them to look at this one and tell themselves it just didn’t matter. It’s one game. Let’s get it over with and go home.
I probably would’ve forgiven them.
As we all got to see, they didn’t do that. They brought the noise. They flew around on defense. They grabbed boards. They made hustle plays left and right. They were certainly the more talented team on the floor, but they didn’t rely on that to carry the day. If this was a practice, then they did everything at game speed. Maybe we won’t be singing about this game in the halls of our ancestors or anything, but performances like this are part of the DNA of teams that end up being special like that.
As a fan, I’m just fully ready to move on to the next phase of things. Every regular season game right now gives me the same feeling I get filling out my taxes. I want the playoffs to start yesterday. It has been almost seven years since I watched our guys play a real playoff game and my body is ready. I’m looking ahead. I’m distracted. I’m doing all the things they tell you not to do. Let’s go! Enough already!
Thankfully, this team seems to have a little more patience than I do. They’re going one game at a time. Never too high, never too low. Win the next game. Aim small, miss small.
This is the way.
Takeaways
- The Play-In games don’t count. Don’t come in here saying “the Spurs were in the playoffs in 2022” unless you want me stop taking you seriously as a person.
- The energy in this game was interesting. It was obviously a little deflated on principle because we weren’t getting a true best-on-best matchup. I mean, no Harrison Barnes in the lineup? I’d forgive anyone for skipping it! Still, it had a few weird little stretches where things got kind of feisty. The pace would suddenly accelerate on both sides and it felt like everyone was sprinting around, jacking threes and throwing down dunks. It was exciting! It wasn’t, you know, great basketball, but it was pretty fun to watch. Kind of like watching a haunted shopping cart race down a hill toward two workers carrying a pane of glass. What’s going to happen? Where’d those guys come from? What unfinished business does that cart have?!?
- I’m enjoying the evolution of Carter Bryant this season. I remember watching him early in the year and noting to myself sagely, “Nice kid, doesn’t quite have it, though.” It’s almost like I completely ignored the possibility that a 20-year-old playing his first real NBA minutes might not be a finished product yet. Funny how that works. He’s looked great recently and he’s clearly carved out a niche role for himself in this rotation, coming in to stretch the floor, crash the glass, and make sure the energy doesn’t drop while the starters are taking a blow. So, you know, basically exactly what we drafted him to do? Imagine that! Periodic reminder to disregard anything I say in here. (Unless I’m eventually proven correct, then you should rightly praise me as a genius).
- Was the NBC throwback broadcast fun? I guess. Do we feel like NBC, in general, is pandering a little too hard to us geriatric millennials to the point where it almost feels like they’re going to put us down soon or something? A little! I truly love some nostalgia bait as much as the next guy, but I’m genuinely at the point with the NBA on NBC thing where I’m just like, “OK! Roundball Rock is great! Michael Jordan used to play basketball on this network! We get it! Enough already!” Seriously guys, have an ounce of faith in yourselves to create something new. You’re paying like $2.5 billion a year for the rights to these games. I’d be happy to whip up a fresh graphics package for, like, half that. Call me.
WWL Post Game Press Conference
– Once you saw the Sixers injury report, did you consider sitting you starters for this one?
– Yeah, we had a conversation about it internally but ultimately decided there was no reason to change our game plan. At the end of the day, our job is to write a WWL regardless of what the opponent is doing. We can’t let them dictate our approach.
– Are you worried about injuries though, especially in a game that might be considered a “throwaway” like this?
– Well, to be clear, I’m worried about injuries all the time. That’s always a top concern. You pull a finger muscle typing, or I don’t know, your back stiffens up at this point in the season and suddenly you’re in real trouble come the playoffs. I know everyone plays hurt at that phase of the season, but you still want to put your best foot forward.
– Still, in light of those concerns, there was no temptation to maybe just play the second string tonight.
– Yeah, I mean like I said, I’m concerned about injuries all the time. That’s not unique to this time of year. So the best course of action for us as an organization was just to go business as usual and let the rest take care of itself.
– Any truth to the rumor that the editorial team puts pressure on its writers to play through injuries on nights like this?
– I’m not going to comment on anything from the league office here. We’ve always had a strong working relationship and I feel confident they would respect our decision.
– There’s chatter on social media that you reportedly told them, “My allergies are really bad, I don’t want to write this morning,” and that their response was, and I’m just reading a quote here, “Get typing, snotty.” Any comment?
– I’m not here to get into Twitter nonsense.
By Charlie Thaddeus, via Pounding The Rock