The loss to the Magic on Tuesday night marked five in a row for the Spurs. A season-high losing streak. Not exactly a record that anyone was looking to shatter, and one that is certainly weighing heavily on everyone in Spursland as we wake up this morning.
In times like this, I think the most important thing we can do is be accountable and, in the spirit of that, we’ve decided to assemble the press at our headquarters and hold an extended, emergency **WWL POST GAME PRESS CONFERENCE.**
### **(extended, emergency) WWL POST GAME PRESS CONFERENCE**
_– Is this actually an emergency?_
– Without a doubt. The team is floundering and this writer is in shambles. I’m resorting to weird gimmicks and stunts just to get words on the page. I needed four cups of coffee before I could even show up to work today.
_– Right. Well, so personally you seem to be going through a bit of a crisis, which we can dig into if you want, but the Spurs are probably okay, yes?_
– Oh, they’re okay, sure. They’ve lost five straight and aren’t very good at basketball, but yeah, they are okay.
_– Aren’t very good? They seem to be playing pretty well here and there. They put up a fight against the Celtics during this losing streak. For three quarters of the game last night they were taking it to the Magic. They’ve shown flashes of being good! Is anyone expecting them to be more than that right now?_
– _sigh_ Well. Not anymore, I guess. Certainly not anymore.
_– They’ve lost their two best players for the season! They have a first-year head coach who is trying to fill the shoes of a living legend! This isn’t a problem. Losing games is what they should be doing._
_– even deeper sigh_ Okay, so this is where the crisis is coming into play for me, personally. Think about that sentence you just said. “Losing games is what they should be doing.” Strip away the context. Forget what you know about how professional basketball works these days. Consider that statement on a fundamental, human level. Really feel it in your bones. “Losing games is what they should be doing.” It’s like a pebble in my shoe. I can keep on walking, but it’s in there and it’s gnawing at my soul.
_– So your argument is that we shouldn’t, as humans, accept that losing is what we’re supposed to be doing?_
– We’re all on the same path, headed in the same direction. The only difference is whether we’re living or dying.
_– Ok. Let’s... let’s pump the brakes a little here._
– Agreed, I maybe spun out quicker than I was expecting in this bit.
_– Let’s talk basketball. What did you see last night? This is supposed to be a What We Learned column—someone might show up here and expect to, I don’t know, learn something._
– Sure. I’d argue that there’s nothing more important we can learn about than our souls but...
_– Hey! Focus!_
– Right, right. Okay, so last night the Spurs were, as you so eloquently put it, fine. They were decimated by injuries and forced to play a series of lineups that were just... I mean, I love Bismack Biyombo, but this was a significant amount of Bismack Biyombo.
_– What about Sandro Mamukelashvili? You love that guy! He got to play like 20 minutes last night!_
– Look, I love Mamu and, in the interest of loving Mamu, I’m going to go ahead and move past his performance from last night.
_– Yeah, that’s maybe for the best._
– There’s not much analysis to be done here! That’s the thing. We can pick it apart all we want, but this was basically not a real team out there. They played hard against a Magic team that is tough and talented and a little weird. They held their own for three quarters and they should be applauded for that. I wish I could crystallize that effort and squirrel it away somewhere to enjoy later, because everything that happened in the 4th quarter just let the air out of my balloon.
_– The collapse from 11-point lead to 14-point deficit wasn’t doing it for you?_
– Safe to say.
_– Well, you like to get weird with it on here. Why not tap into some cool, new-age philosophy to deal with it? Maybe something about how the concept of experiencing time in a linear fashion is a construct programmed into us by a corrupt society that’s forgotten what it’s like to truly live?_
– Hey, cut it out. I’m not in the mood.
_– I just think you’re being too hard on things here. This was nothing. You’ve spent the past month waffling back and forth on whether or not to care about wins and losses and performance metrics and all the rest. I’ve sat here and watched you declare that you’re going to have a positive attitude from now on and that this time it’s going to stick right before spiraling back into an existential crisis over... what? A no-stakes late season loss to the Magic? What are we doing here?_
– Doesn’t sound very cool when you lay it out like that.
_– It’s NOT very cool. No one is having a good time with this little cycle. Either be happy-go-lucky or morose. Pick a lane._
– I understand the frustration, I do. But I’m not going to pick a lane.
– _sigh_
– No, hear me out. I’m not going to pick a lane because that’s not how this works. That’s not how being a fan of a sports team works. You plug yourself into this team for a variety of reasons and then you just... experience it. You live it every single day. Sometimes you feel a little distant. Maybe you miss a few games and check out of the day-to-day. Sometimes you lock in and feel like every game, quarter, and possession is life or death. I can’t just decide how to react to something—I can only react. Sometimes the losses don’t hurt, sometimes they do. My only job is to keep you apprised on the status.
_– So you call ’em like you see ’em._
– I guess so. Yeah.
_– So... you’ve thrown a lot of stuff at us this morning, but let’s go ahead and make a call. How did we feel after this one?_
– Bored. I felt bored. Which, honestly, I think that’s what’s led me to feeling bad. I’d rather the game just made me feel bad straight up! You know?
_– You feel bad...but want to feel a different kind of bad?_
– Exactly! I want to feel something real. I want a playoff loss on a last-second three. I want a devastating turnover down the stretch in a pivotal moment of a game that matters. I want an opponent dunking one of our guys into next week and then sneering at us in the crowd and we all bristle and boo him. Get the blood pumping! I want to LOCK THE HELL IN with this team and get fired up about something! I’m tired of watching the Spurs and just... feeling bored.
_– It’s been a long season._
– A really long season.
_– You’ve done two gimmick columns in a row now—anything else special planned for the home stretch?_
– A magician never reveals his secrets.
_– You’re probably just going to be weird, yeah?_
– Yeah.