Long enough afterward, it’s perfect that we were talking to a Pacers fan. I’d completely missed the place I was supposed to meet with Steve, walking a clear two blocks past it before I realized the Google Maps button did not match the side of the street where this joint exists. Walking in and, for the second time in thirty seconds, completely missing my target, Steve waved me down to an open seat he’d been saving. An hour before tip-off and three blocks from the Garden, our eventual destination for Game 2, I sat down.

As an introduction was about to inform me, an affable gentleman named Paul, ex-military and parked on a laptop, was along for this particular pregame ride. He told a few sort of boilerplate stories about what bravery means before he took the first of a few left turns, this one into the values of nationalized healthcare and unionization, because if we don’t have us, we don’t have anything: this is what the military is supposed to teach you. Paul was verbose, but, sure, he was alright[1].

Being in a sea of actually-excited Knicks fans is addictive: that’s been New York City this season. With the Rangers doing similar work in the same building on off-nights, the city buzzes. It sounds any number of self-referentially disparaging adjectives, but the streets feel alive with the sound of #knickstape.

Anonymous, Venetian Feast, c. 1550.

It’s a misnomer that we, the professional basketball-viewing public, refer to this time as “the second half of the season” – in reality, NBA teams have less than thirty games to figure their way to self-determination. Whether this means coaches going from pencil to pen with their post-trade deadline lineups before the playoffs or, in the cases of a few franchises in any given season, dropping chalkboards entirely, settling in only once this time means getting serious about whatever you’re about.

To nobody’s surprise, the All-Star Weekend went off without a hitch – but with many complaints. Once the kingmaking event of the weekend, the dunk contest has descended to stars being afraid to measure up to the expectations that earlier dunk contests have set[1]. The other events have made their parameters so esoteric as to be unapproachable to – no, not even the average viewer, but to anybody. While this all happened less than a week ago, it now feels like it was a decade or two in the past. Memory retention, “recent events,” taking out the recycling.

In this same uncertain timeframe, it feels like the Boston Celtics have been contenders, never quite breaking through but always capital-T The Threat. Even after the Bucks won the title in 2021, the Celtics had some legitimate claims to the throne. Right now, here, is this: it’s the time for this Boston Celtics team. With respect to Brown, it’s the time for Jayson Tatum, the player who entered the league a year later than he but solidified a vision of what a wing-wing title contender could look like. Cycling through Kemba Walker, Kyrie Irving and others, the Brown-Tatum tandem has remained.

It was really rather good.