By Charlie Thaddeus | Pounding The Rock (PtR), 2026-05-05 16:13:07
我醒来时感觉状态全无。
口干舌燥。忽冷忽热，我也说不准。我拼命想分散注意力，不去想现在的感受，但我骨子里很清楚，看手机绝对不会有什么好事。我需要一杯咖啡，或者一杯水。也许只是一个拥抱。我不知道，只要能缓解这种焦虑感，什么都行。
现在大概是谈论季后赛有多么折磨人的最好时机。抛开那些陈词滥调——比如这并不真的重要，世界充满了各种现实的噩梦和问题——我感觉自己正逐渐失去对现实的掌控。人类本不该承受这些。连续两个月，每隔一个晚上就要经历一次生死时速？拜托，我今天还得上班呢。一旦比赛开始，你就进入了这种诡异的情感过山车，它交替着给你带来一生的巅峰快感，又在急转弯处把你甩得魂飞魄散。高潮时直冲云霄，低谷时深不见底。
至少，如果你投入其中的话，确实如此。
所以，没错，昨晚是一个低谷。我想大家都会同意这一点。我不想纠结于此，但是，嘿，我本来也不想陷入低谷，所以我觉得目前“纠结”可能就是我们的必修课。
我不会去为你查任何数据，因为我的受虐倾向也是有限度的，但足以说明的是，数据很糟糕。几乎是全方位的。维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama) 拿到了一个诡异的三双。其他人……我不知道。他们也有些贡献，但还不够。这就是为什么我们现在盯着天花板，完全不知道该拿自己怎么办。
我们不需要重申细节。我们都看了比赛，坦白说，清理残骸寻找答案并不是我们的工作。没人付钱让我们坐在黑屋子里钻研录像，研究如何为我们的球员设计出更多的空位投篮，好让他们继续砸筐而出。那不是我们的责任。
不，我们在这里要做的是“沉溺”。带着胸口这团乱糟糟的情绪坐一会儿，试着在明晚开球前从这种压抑中挣脱出来，重新振作。
当我躺在这里，遍体鳞伤，心烦意乱且无精打采时，我发现自己正步入那些宏大却无解的问题的老路。你知道的，时间、空间、因果律。我们在这里做什么？我们为什么要这么做？安东尼·爱德华兹 (Anthony Edwards) 是不是在实验室里专门为了毁掉我的一天而设计的，还是说其他人也遭殃了？
这些内容并不深刻。甚至算不上新颖。但当某件事像第一场比赛那样让你喘不过气时，大脑最容易退缩到的角落就是形而上学的领域。这是我们确认自己依然存在、依然活着的方式。
我不老，但也不年轻了。我记得高中时这些季后赛征程是什么感觉，那感觉和高中时的其他事情很像。热烈。我脑海中深深烙印着和朋友们挤在一个房间里看球的记忆，屏息凝神于每一次投篮，为好球欢呼雀跃，为失球痛不欲生。我能触摸到它们，闻到它们，听到它们。就好像它们正发生在当下，就在我眼前。
我不知道那时我是不是更在乎篮球，或许我那时更在乎一切。我花了很多时间思考，生活是否本就如此。当你初识世界时，生命燃烧得最热、最亮，然后随着我们前行的脚步，它缓慢而持续地黯淡下去。
昨晚，在孩子们入睡后，我独自观看了这场比赛。我和我的狗坐在一起，为一群努力投篮的二十岁年轻人感到焦虑。这感觉不像是一场派对，更像是一场锻炼。我踱步，握拳，摇头，然后当一切结束时，我关掉电视上楼睡觉。记住，我今天还要工作。
由于种种原因，我无法像青少年时期那样观看这些比赛了。我不能真的在早上宿醉，无论是生理上的还是情感上的。我拼命想花几个小时抱怨裁判、罚球失准或是朱利叶斯·兰德尔 (Julius Randle)，但是，你知道的，孩子们得去上学。衣服得洗。股东们需要将非结构化数据转化为可操作的见解。我想抱怨，天知道我有多想。但我不能。
但问题是，我依然很生气。我继续着这一天的工作，埋头于电子表格，但我依然在想着那个该死的安东尼·爱德华兹，以及他整晚挂在脸上的那种柴郡猫般的笑容。我确信，将来有一天当我老态龙钟，坐在前廊的摇椅上时，我会突然想起他迎着文班伸出的长臂投进三分球的画面，然后肚子里会升起一种医生建议你去检查一下的那种灼烧般的恨意。这将伴随我的余生。
我讨厌这种感觉。
但我哪儿也不想去。
要点总结
- 当我们的对手因为一个高个子法国人而不敢冲击篮筐时？ 爽呆了！没错！！！
- 当我们的球员因为一个高个子法国人而不敢冲击篮筐时？ 真是糟透了。搞什么鬼？
- 我之前承诺过不查这场比赛的任何数据，而我向来言出必行。不过投篮真的很烂。从直觉上？情感上？很烂。整晚一个球都进不去。一个都没有。我知道你在想：“他们得了102分，肯定进了一些球。”是的，我明白你为什么这么想。但你错了。别逼我指着那个“不准查数据”的告示牌。
- 马刺在对阵森林狼时似乎有个很“萌”的习惯，就是整个第四节都处于掉线状态。非常别致，非常欧洲范儿。别误会，我喜欢这种对“人设”的坚持。坚持人设是我非常看重的事情。我只是觉得在某个时刻，也许，他们可能想尝试收下一场胜利。只是个想法，随便提提。
- 新季后赛系列赛中一个被低估的乐趣是有一批新的反派可以让我们投入情感。爱德华兹显然是我们的头号大敌，但我很兴奋能探索新的口味。杰登·麦克丹尼尔斯 (Jaden McDaniels)、纳兹·里德 (Naz Reid)、小泰伦斯·香农 (Terrence Shannon Jr.)。兰德尔？我不介意给你也撒点恨意。鲁迪·戈贝尔 (Rudy Gobert)？我感激你对文班亚马的指导和赞美，真的，但我订购的那个特大号巫术娃娃随时可能寄到，所以我不觉得你在第二场比赛会过得愉快。迈克·康利 (Mike Conley)？你人不错。
WWL 赛后新闻发布会
负责写输球后的稿件是不是很困难？
我的意思是，说到底只有两种结果，所以这并不是我没准备好应对的情况。
当然，但这是两者中更难的一个吗？
它是……是的。哪怕只是因为通常在输球后，我最想做的事情就是移开视线，假装它没发生过。就像，昨晚我已经经历过一次了，我真的不想在今天早上登录电脑再经历一次。不过从长远来看，这对我可能更健康。
面对自己的情绪而不是假装它们没发生，这样更健康？
深挖内心更健康。试着从这份痛苦中挣扎出一点意义。也许能找到一种方法来了解自己、了解世界、了解生活，你懂吗？真正深入其中，尝试治愈！
所以，你是说面对自己的情绪而不是假装它们没发生，这样更健康？
我的意思是，是的。
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 Game 1 loss to the Wolves
What We Learned from the Spurs Game 1 loss to the Wolves
I’ve woken up under the weather.
My mouth is dry. I’m either hot or cold, I can’t decide. I desperately want to distract myself from whatever it is I’m feeling right now, but I know, deep in my bones, that nothing good is going to come from looking at my phone. I need a coffee. Or a water. Maybe just a hug. I don’t know, anything to take the edge off.
Now is probably as good a time as any to talk about how grueling the playoffs are. All the usual caveats aside, that this doesn’t really matter and that the world is a nightmare full of actual problems, I feel like I’m losing my grip on reality. People weren’t meant to do this. To live and die every other night for two straight months? Like, come on. I have to go to work today. Once the games start you just enter into this weird emotional rollercoaster that is alternately giving you the thrill of a lifetime and spinning you through curves sharp enough to make you meet your ancestors. The highs are so very high and the lows are so very, very low.
At least, they are if you’re doing it right.
So yeah, last night was a low. I think we can all agree on that. I don’t want to dwell on it or anything, but, hey, I didn’t want to be in the low in the first place, so I think maybe a bit of dwelling is simply on the menu for us at the moment.
What I’m not going to do is look up any numbers for you because my masochism only goes so far, but suffice to say they were bad. Kind of across the board. Wemby got a weird triple double. Everyone else got…I don’t know. They got some, but they didn’t get enough. Which is how we find ourselves here, staring at the ceiling, not entirely sure what to do with ourselves.
We don’t need to rehash the specifics. We all watched it and, frankly, it’s not our job to sift through the wreckage looking for answers. Nobody is paying us to sit in a dark room, grind tape, and figure out how to scheme even more open looks for our guys to clang off the rim. That’s not on us.
No, what we’re here to do is dwell. To sit with this inelegant ball of emotions on our chest and try to fight out from under it with enough time left to psyche ourselves up before tipoff tomorrow night.
As I lie here, battered and bruised, distracted and listless, I find myself trudging down the well-worn path of big unanswerable questions. You know, time. Space. Causality. What are we doing here? Why are we doing it? Was Anthony Edwards designed in a lab to specifically ruin my day, or is anyone else getting hit?
This is not deep stuff. It’s not even particularly original. But when something knocks the wind out of you the way Game 1 did, the easiest corner of the brain to retreat to is the metaphysical one. It’s how we make sure we’re still here. That we’re still alive.
I’m not old, but I’m also not young. I remember what these playoff runs felt like in high school, and it was a lot like how everything else felt in high school. Intense. My memories of watching those games in a room packed with friends, hanging on every shot, erupting at the good and dying at the bad, are imprinted on my brain. I can touch them. Smell them. Hear them. It’s as if they’re happening right now, right in front of my face.
I don’t know if I cared about basketball more back then, so much as I cared about everything more back then. I spend a lot of time wondering if that’s just how life goes. It burns hottest and brightest when you’re new to the world and slowly, continuously dims as we make our way through it.
Last night, I watched this game by myself after the kids had gone to sleep. I sat with my dogs and I nervously fretted over a bunch of twenty year olds trying to hit jump shots. It felt less like a party, and more like a workout. I paced and I pumped my fist and I shook my head and then, when it was over, I turned the TV off and went upstairs to bed. I have work today, remember?
For a variety of reasons, I can’t watch these games the same way I did as a teenager. I can’t actually spend my morning hungover, emotionally or otherwise. I desperately want to spend a few hours complaining about the refs or missed free throws or Julius Randle but, you know, The kids have to get to school. The laundry has to get done. The shareholders need unstructured data turned into actionable insights. I want to. Boy, do I want to. But I can’t.
Here’s the thing though. I am still mad. I’m going through my day, grinding on spreadsheets, and I am still thinking about Anthony freakin’ Edwards and that Cheshire cat grin plastered on his face all night. I know for a fact that someday when I’m old and decrepit, sitting in a rocking chair on my front porch, I’m going to randomly recall him draining a three over Wemby’s outstretched hand and feel the kind of burning hate in my belly that doctors say you should have checked out. It will haunt me for the rest of my days.
I hate how this feels.
There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
Takeaways
- When our opponents get nervous going to the rack because of a tall French dude? Hell yeah! Yes!!!
- When our players get nervous going to the rack because of a tall French dude? Well this sucks. What the hell?
- I made a promise earlier not to look up any numbers from this game, and I am nothing if not a man of my word. The shooting was bad though. Anecdotally? Emotionally? Bad. Nothing was going in all night. Not a single shot. I know what you’re thinking: “they scored 102 points, surely some of the shots must have gone in.” And yeah, I can see why you’d think that. You’d be wrong. Don’t make me tap the sign about not looking up numbers.
- There seems to be this cute thing the Spurs do against the Timberwolves where they take the entire fourth quarter off. Very chic. Very European. Don’t get me wrong, I love the commitment to the bit. Committing to bits is something I hold very near and dear to my heart. I just think that at some point, maybe, they might want to try closing one of these out instead. Just a thought. Just putting it out there.
- One of the underrated pleasures of a new playoff series is the fresh set of villains to invest in. Edwards is obviously our big bad, but I’m excited to explore new flavors. Jaden McDaniels. Naz Reid. Terrence Shannon Jr. Julius Randle? Don’t mind if I sprinkle a little hate your way. Rudy Gobert? I appreciate the mentorship and the kind words about Wembanyama, truly, but the very tall voodoo doll I ordered should be arriving any minute now, so I wouldn’t expect to have much fun in Game 2. Mike Conley? You’re cool.
WWL Post Game Press Conference
Is it difficult to get saddled with the writing assignment for losses?
I mean, there’s really only two options at the end of the day, so it’s not like it’s an eventuality I haven’t prepared for.
Sure, but is it the harder of the two?
It’s…yes. If only because usually after a loss the thing I want to do the most is look away and pretend it didn’t happen. Like, I lived it once last night, I don’t really want to log in this morning and live it again. I think in the long run it’s probably healthier for me though.
Healthier to deal with your emotions instead of pretending they didn’t happen?
Healthier to dig deep. To try and wrestle some meaning out of this pain. Maybe find a way to learn something about myself, about the world, about life, you know? Really get in there and try to heal!
So, you’re saying it’s healthier to deal with your emotions instead of pretending they didn’t happen?
I mean, yeah.
By Charlie Thaddeus, via Pounding The Rock