The Side Part: Watching games through windows

I type a lot of these pieces on my phone. I’ll get out the base ideas and a few details in the Notes app, then I’ll email it to myself, and copy and paste that into WordPress. When I type the word “Russ” my phone changes it to “RUSS.” One of the other three options it gives me is “RUSSELL.” I feel like my phone is telling me something: That it knows what is best for me.

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In Chicago there is a thing that happens where you experience some games on your way to other places. You are walking on the sidewalk, in the snow, and the cold, and all on your left are sports bars and dive bars and restaurants with plasmas stuck to the wall, shining bright in the dark rooms, playing a game you want to watch, but don’t have time to experience fully yet. That will come later, when you get home to your DVR. But in that moment you are walking and not looking at where you’re going because your head is turned toward the televisions.

And you’ll stop in front of a window for a few seconds and watch a possession play out, and sometimes the couple on a date with a seat by the window will look up at you and you’ll not look down at them. And the ball will go out of bounds or a TV timeout will happen and you’ll walk in the sludge a little more, your eyes darting to the left, catching visions of Lincoln commercials, until you see the court again, and you’ll stop in the glow of a window, the television flickering off the faces of uninterested people trying to have conversations, and watch some more.

I celebrated Westbrook’s winner outside of a bar called Sip. Sip thinks it’s fancy — shockingly low lighting, every table has a candle you gotta tilt your menu toward in order to read, fake vines on the walls, jazz coming out of subs in the corner of the room, dining room in the back made to look like an Italian courtyard — but I once had a $14 cheeseburger there that had a strip of paper in it. There was a television on the wall opposite the bar. A man on a stool thought I was looking at him, until I pointed to the TV, and he turned around, and then nodded and turned back to his beer.  I pumped my fist as Russ skipped and bundled up people who had just got off a bus looked in the window, too, and then kept moving, their heads down, looking for ice.

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There was a Kevin Durant dunk last night where he reached all the way back to Bethesda, then brought it down, a hammer, on Gortat’s head. Durant walked off like he was wearing a shell, like there was some sort of force field glowing neon and green around him, like he could not be touched. It made Kendrick Perkins dance. This was a dunk in overtime, while the Thunder was down two, in what should probably be considered a must win game, as most all of them feel like at this point. Gortat fouled him, too.

This was the win before the win. People with facial hair/haircut combos like Gortat ought to be made to feel embarrassed in some way every day of their lives. He’s from Poland, you say, they’re eccentric over there. Harvey Keitel’s got some Polish to him, and you don’t see him walking around looking like that in real life. He saves that stuff for the big screen. Gortat looks like some animator for God of War drew him.

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See the Russell executing. See him getting to the rim. See him skipping. That skip, accompanied by all the graceful efficiency of a gazelle with attitude, one that ran down a cheetah and ate it while all the other animals just sat there and watched, slack jawed. We do not talk about how fast Westbrook is because he is so obviously fast that it is not something you talk about. It’s like how we don’t ever talk about how it’s hard to see in the dark because that’s a very obvious part of being in the dark. Nobody talks about how water is wet, or how the sky is above us.

Russell Westbrook’s speed is a universally accepted truth. It’s still amazing to think about the fact that this guy is surgeries deep on a knee. He’s made of Flubber. 32, 8, and 8. In a world where some people would actually suggest that playing with John Wall would be better for Durant than playing with Westbrook, Russ let us all know that if you’re an alien you don’t really care what people are saying in this world. You go out, make them look stupid, and set fire to the fields.

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Steven Adams doing things Perkins dare not dream of anymore, or maybe ever. The Perk never did fly. Buddy of mine saw Perkins play high school ball as a senior in Texas and described what he saw as, “I mean, yea, he was pretty good.” Then he took another bite of Long John Silver’s and we moved on. Adams, catching that oop from Jackson with one hand and finishing like that on somebody, Kevin Seraphin getting a stone Sinatra Has A Cold reminder that Adams is more athletic than his up and down running would suggest…it was out of nowhere. If that ball even touches Perkins’ hand it’s hitting a stadium vendor.

Does anyone feel this when they watch Adams run? That he is holding in something. I can’t tell what. But he runs very tight, as if he’s afraid to let loose for fear of something falling out of him. This, of course, is absurd. The apocalypse does not scare the Funaki — what could with a sister like his? She’ll bring forth more destruction than fire rain, and he lived with her. He is afraid of nothing. But straight up and straight down he runs. And I think this stiffness in the running is why things like last night take on an especially “Yoooo!?” type of mindset whenever they happen. Did he just go up and get that?