The Toronto Raptors lost to the Denver Nuggets by six points last night. A final score of 121 to 115 feels right for a mid March basketball game, mostly because it includes a lot of running and very little secondary defense. Nikola Jokic is still there, being tall and throwing passes that make you wonder if he is actually from the future or just really good at geometry.
The Raptors are currently sitting in the fifth seed with a record of 39 and 30. It is a strange place to be, like finding yourself at a party where you do not really know the host but you are too comfortable on the couch to leave. We are looking at other teams now, specifically Orlando and Atlanta, hoping they lose so we can stay where we are. It is called hate watching, which is just a fancy term for being a regular sports fan with a slightly higher heart rate.
Art and Identity
Someone on the internet is drawing a sketch after every single Raptors game this season. They just finished the 69th drawing out of 82. That is a lot of commitment to a team that occasionally forgets how to box out. I wonder what the drawing for the Nuggets loss looks like, probably a lot of vertical lines and a sense of longing.
There is also a Ford Fan Day coming up with a mystery Raptors alumnus. People are asking who it might be, which is a dangerous game to play in this city. It could be a legend, or it could be a backup shooting guard from the mid 2000s who once had a really good half against Milwaukee. I once saw Pape Sow at a grocery store, but that is a story for another time.
The Dark Side of Gravity
Will Lou is talking about the Raptors needing to flop more, which feels like a moral crossroads we were eventually going to hit. Basketball is theoretically about putting a ball in a hoop, but it is also about convincing a referee that a slight breeze was actually a shove from a three hundred pound man. It is a performance art, much like the sketches or the way my uncle tries to explain why the 1995 expansion draft was rigged.
We play the Phoenix Suns next. The game is at 9:00pm, which is late for people who have to wake up and do things the next morning. The sun sets, the Suns play, and we all just wait for the next sketch to drop. It is a cycle that never ends, much like a 24 second clock that somehow feels like it lasts for an eternity when we are down by four.