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Tag Archives: NBA Finals

In The Costume Of A Monk

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June 10, 2026
Sports
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In stark contrast to my circumstances during Game 2, I was hyper-aware, too much even, during Game 3. Standing in a midtown east bar with ex-college roommates and friend of the program Shannon, most of us decked out in blue and orange, I couldn’t avoid it had I tried: the standard slow Knicks start; the comeback and halftime lead (!); and, finally, Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle grinding San Antonio to its first NBA Finals game win since 2014, 115-111, cutting the Knicks lead to 2-1 in the series.

As his scoring has increased in each game, so has Wemby’s interior presence. Despite Karl-Anthony Towns’ stout defense carrying into Game 3, Victor was above the rim and closer to it more often than he had been all series. He had three blocks and generally seemed calmer than he had in either of the games back in San Antonio, though his uncharacteristically vengeful shove on Jalen Brunson, and subsequent mocking of him, might not all the way fit into the Shaolin lifestyle.

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Bounding, Astounding

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June 6, 2026
America, Basketball, NBA
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By the time my stomach had settled down, following the remarks at the wedding but not too long thereafter, it began to tighten again. I headed back to Brooklyn and tried my best to ignore it, but: the wedding party had settled in a place that had Game 2 of the NBA Finals on the screens. Unbeknownst to pretty much everyone else involved, it was time for the New York Knicks.

Through the first half, I tried my best to ignore it – really, I did, honest. When I felt my eyes stray for too long, I would shake myself back, trying to be present, trying to pay any amount of attention from a dwindling account. It was, coincidentally, also my parents’ wedding anniversary. I wasn’t ever going to forget any of this. Aside from a Knicks Spritz in the name of the gang, I mostly think I held it together in not talking about what was happening so apparently in front of me.

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2000-Zero-Zero

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June 2, 2026
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This is it: it’s time for us to go to the wire. With one team having punched its ticket to the championship round over a week ago, and the other having had to punch its way through the widely-regarded toughest matchup in the league, the NBA Finals are finally set. For the first time since 2014, the San Antonio Spurs are returning to what’s become familiar ground since 1999.

At the same time, for these Spurs as well as the rest of the NBA, it is new territory because, for the eighth time in the last eight seasons, there will be a non-repeat NBA champion. None of the San Antonio players has even won a playoff series as a member of this franchise before this season. Parity being Adam Silver’s singular objective for the first decade of his stewardship of basketball bodes well for the league’s shift into international markets, at least as a roadmap. All anyone needs is a roadmap.

If Victor Wembanyama has anything to do with it, though, that tide may soon turn. Has he arrived ahead of schedule, or perhaps have his teammates? Is San Antonio going to auger in a new period of parity before it had a chance to launch? The short answer: not if Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks have anything to say about it in the next three weeks.

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Summertime Serenade

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July 31, 2025
Sports
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One of my greatest weaknesses is an inability to remain calm; even when silent, my hands are shaking, or my feet are bouncing, or my eyes are darting. Because of the prolonged, unnecessary chaos happening in previously functional communities here and abroad, this is now my default state.

When the going gets tough, sometimes the going has to come to a complete stop. In a summer sponsored by atrocity, brought to you by the same people who convinced your bosses to lay you off or, better, yet, convinced you to get a STEM degree a decade ago before eliminating the sciences in favor of the bomb, it’s been a little difficult to focus on any one thing and even more so for the good.

Acknowledging all of that, though, means acknowledging the rest, the aforementioned good. The candle of joy, wherever and however possible, is now the daily pursuit of millions of us. Maybe we even shared in one of these instances.

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Everyday People

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June 22, 2025
Sports
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Sam Presti, a man from Massachusetts who split time at colleges before graduating from Emerson and landing with the more or less dynastic San Antonio Spurs of the mid-aughts under Gregg Popovich and R.C. Buford, is 47 years old. Since private equity clown[1] Clay Bennett hired Presti to generally manage the Seattle SuperSonics in 2007, the team has 1) moved cities, which has nothing to do with Presti and everything to do with Bennett, and 2) drafted four (4) NBA Most Valuable Players[2].

Three of them played together in a decisive NBA Finals game thirteen (13) years ago; the fourth plays alone on Sunday night. Drop your phone and stop talking about the Lakers, or Desmond Bane, or wherever you think Ace Bailey is going to land. Ex-Sonic Jeff Green – still active! – will likely be watching. Will you?

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Promises, Promises

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June 18, 2024
America, Basketball, NBA
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It’s about Jaylen and Jayson, to be clear, but we’ll return to them. Everybody else involved with this Celtics run made it possible. To follow the blueprint for what the Spurs and Sixers were looking for in essence, and then pull it off as efficiently as they did, has to be maddening to detractors. Nevertheless, Boston was the best team in the league all season. It turns out: that means all season.

After seven years of will-they, won’t-they together, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum finally put it together, albeit with the help of Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, as well as mainstays returned or otherwise in Al Horford, Peyton Pritchard, Sam Hauser and Derrick White. Brad Stevens ran his game on the rest of the NBA. Now, finally, the Boston Celtics are the NBA champions.

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Keep a Little Fire Burning

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June 13, 2023
Basketball, NBA
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High school prospect Spencer Haywood joined the then-Denver Rockets for a season before jumping to the NBA, but with a few notable exceptions, the franchise remained in muck for much of its existence. One name change, one historically high-scoring era and a couple of generations of ridicule at the hands of – oof – Kings and Knicks fans, and the Denver Nuggets have finally arrived: 47 years after joining the NBA proper, the Nuggets have won the franchise’s first NBA championship.

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And I can picture it after all these days

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November 16, 2021
Basketball, NBA, Sports
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Stephen Curry - Men's Basketball - Davidson College Athletics

What we’ve more or less known for several years spanning multiple presidential administrations is that a person, currently in his thirties and born in Ohio, is the most important and influential men’s basketball player of the past twenty years, at least. While it’s contentious to suggest that the state is the birthplace of aviation, as the state itself does, instead of aviators, which is what it is, its place as a basketball haven is beyond question.

The antecedent, however, lies in the heart of the beholder: LeBron James is, by most credible accounts, at least the second- or third-greatest basketball player ever to walk the earth. His performance in the 2015 NBA Finals, nevermind the following year, won many people over following his period of Heat villainy.

Then again, well, the guy who spearheaded the Finals win over him, as well as two more later on, put on a 37-point performance Tuesday night against a former teammate’s would-be superteam when the Golden State Warriors beat the Brooklyn Nets 117-99. That guy, Steph Curry, was (and, the hope goes, always will be) cooking.

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A Berry To Drive Away Fatigue And Lethargy

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September 28, 2020
Basketball, NBA, Sports
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5412245 1916x1272 #coffee, #coffee cup, #steam, #red cup, #blur, #Public domain images, #tea, #morning, #drink, #hot drink, #coffee mug, #red, #bokeh, #warm, #rising steam, #close up, #hot, #mug, #cup | Mocah.org HD

Long before it was the juice that fueled your disappointing Zoom meetings, coffee was a delight of the Arabian Peninsula. It might delight people to know that the word “coffee” is itself derived from a word originally given to a type of wine, at least in many common interpretations; what somebody saw in both was appetite suppression. Fair enough.

It might be curious, then, to learn that the Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler started selling homespun coffee in the NBA bubble under the moniker Big Face Coffee. For $20 a pop, any resident of the bubble could have a taste, courtesy of a five-time NBA All-Star. Butler is one of the most notoriously hard workers in the league, and, as such, his appetite has never come into question. On Sunday night, and with a stupendous amount of help from Bam Adebayo – who, it’s worth noting, hates Butler’s pricing strategy –  and company, he pushed the Miami Heat into the NBA Finals, ready to stand up to LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers.

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The Six, in Six

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June 14, 2019
Basketball, NBA, Sports
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AP Photo/Tony Avelar

It all seemed so futile, right up until it didn’t. When the Golden State Warriors signed DeMarcus Cousins to a one-year, well-below-market value contract in the summer of 2018, it was as if the embarrassment of riches had itself become embarrassed. It is nice to have nice things; it is rude to flaunt those nice things so rabidly that the idea of not having any of it becomes offensive.

When Kawhi Leonard, the Board Man, decided it was his time to fell another dynastic squad, however, there was little that Golden State could do about it. Through an unreplicable series of transactions, the Toronto Raptors were able to beat the Warriors at their own game. On Thursday night, in the final NBA game ever at Oracle Arena, the Raptors became the world champions, bringing a title to the homeland of the sport’s inventor.

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