There is a certain type of silence that only exists in Scotiabank Arena during the third quarter of a game where the score does not matter. It is the sound of several thousand people realizing they could have stayed home and watched a documentary about salt. The Raptors lost again, which is fine, because losing is just winning in the opposite direction.
The conversation today is not about the score, but about the way Jamal Murray stood over Jamal Shead. Usually, when a teammate is on the floor, you pick them up. It is a basic human instinct, like blinking or avoiding eye contact with a person holding a clipboard on Queen Street. The Raptors just kind of watched him down there, which feels like a metaphor for the entire season.
The Gravity of Not Moving
If you fall down in a basketball game, you expect a hand to appear (sometimes four hands). When nobody reaches out, it suggests an apathy that is hard to quantify in a box score. It is not that they do not like Shead, I assume he is a very nice guy, but rather that everyone seems to be moving through a swimming pool filled with cold gravy.
Apathy is a heavy coat to wear for eighty two games. It makes the hustle plays feel like a chore, like doing the dishes when you know you are just going to eat more cereal in four hours. We are watching a group of professionals who seem to be contemplating the futility of the bounce pass.
The Mathematics of Hope
Elsewhere, fans are spending their evenings on Tankathon, clicking a digital button to see if a ping pong ball will save their lives. Someone clicked that button fifty eight times before the Raptors moved up. That is a lot of clicking for a Thursday. My uncle used to say that if you have to ask a machine for permission to be happy, you have already lost.
We are looking at Trayce Jackson-Davis now, or staring at Shai Gilgeous-Alexander breaking Wilt Chamberlain records. It is strange to see history being made while we are just trying to remember who played center for us in 2007. Primoz Brezec comes to mind, for reasons I cannot fully explain.
Looking Forward, Slightly
The season continues because the schedule says it must. There are games to be played and jerseys to be tucked in. Maybe next game someone will help a teammate up off the floor. Or maybe we will all just stay down there for a while and see how the hardwood feels.
It is probably quite polished. You can see your own reflection in it if you look closely enough. In that reflection, you might see a team that is tired of being a team, or maybe just a group of people who forgot that the point of the game is to try to win it. Regardless, the weather is supposed to be gray tomorrow, which feels appropriate.