gwyv

5/22/25

            Watching the Knicks lose last night was traumatic. Up 16 points with 2:30 to go and just letting the Pacers hit 7 3s to then lose in overtime and let that little wannabe prance around the Garden is something I can’t forget. I thought the 5th inning of Game 5 of the Yankees/Dodgers World Series last year was the worst collapse by a team I root for I’ve ever seen. That just got one upped. That’s the thing I can’t deal with. If you lose fine. If you don’t show up and lose then shame on you. But to lose in traumatic fashion shame on me. For caring. For dedicating time and energy to something that truly doesn’t matter. I got all wistful yesterday listening to an 86 year old call into WFAN to talk about “Sweetwater Clifton” in the 1950s and how he’s this life long Knicks fan. That is what makes it relevant. That’s the only sort of thing that makes sports actually valuable. How it threads time and connects people through common purpose. It is a demarcation of time and an indicator of…well commonality. Shared attention. His fandom has some value at 86, call it a venerable vintage. To have that perspective, it transcends sports. Regardless of what he has dedicated his time to, that thing now represents a value of the human experience. Contributes to the greater wisdom of our society. Win or lose.

The Garden was full of celebs per usual. Some of my favorites in Jon Hamm and Larry David court side. They must be traumatized. Jon Hamm even got involved in a play when the ball landed in his lap. He sort of caught it before the player had a chance to save it from going out of bounds. He barely moved though it basically landed in his hands. I just watched the replay. So anyway. Terrible, awful Game 1. Makes me not want to watch sports anymore. Because it’s such a waste of time. Why care about anything? If you lose that’s one thing. Losing in traumatic, historic, all time fashion is another. I don’t need any part of that. I’d rather you be the Nets. Spare me the emotional roller coaster. It’s fine if they win but when they lose the pain of that is so much greater than any pleasure from victory. The only time I’ve been on the receiving end was in the Giants two Super Bowl wins. Those are very valuable to me. But conversely, the Patriots won 6 titles during that decade. The Knicks haven’t won anything in over 50 years. Okay. So it’s not like the Patriots were broken by those losses.

            The Knicks will likely break after that. It would take an immense amount of mental fortitude to rebound (no pun intended) from that loss. They’re better than the Pacers. In all honesty the Pacers had to get lucky to win that game. That’s really the bottom line. They worked to get back into it but to not miss on 7 3s in the last 2 minutes of the game takes luck. The shot that tied the game literally bounced 15 feet into the air off the back rim and somehow went down. Just absurd. Things that can’t even be made up.

            So why bother with anything if it’s just going to let you down in epic fashion? Protect yourself from unnecessary pain by not caring about something that is completely out of your control. Seems rational. So why do we do it? I don’t know. It’s just the weakness of the human species. I basically subjected myself to an hour of commercials just to trauma eat ice cream at midnight. Really healthy.

            The mind control that goes on while we intake these events is so blatant it’s almost impossible to pick up on unless you’re looking for it. Every little advertisement puts something in your mind that contributes to micro decisions you will make in your every day life. So in the end the only team that wins is the corporate overlords. We’re all losers. Especially the 50,000 people who call themselves Pacers fans. Talk about having nothing else going for you. Your team won but like, haven’t you already lost? What do they have there? Meth and Christ churches? Okay. Cheap boags. That’s a W.

            So Knicks will likely cave now. Would be a remarkable feat for them to come back from such a trauma. I hope they do but like, can I even watch? Renaming the streets in Manhattan after guys on the team was a real stroke of genius. Now just a daily reminder that everyone who cares is a loser. Literally. It’s something you do when you’ve already won the title. Of course they fail in legendary fashion immediately. It’s like getting a (semi temporary I guess) tattoo of your boy/girlfriend after dating for a month and then they rob you and leave you to go back to Indiana. Perfect.