JERUSALEM -- For two weeks, I was waking up about half the
mornings at 4 o'clock or so -- not exactly intentionally, but it
kept working out that way -- to watch the live NBA finals on the
Israeli sports channel. Rooting for San Antonio, basically because
I predicted to a friend that they'd win, I was well rewarded by
their triumph in the seventh game.
Since we have a lot to occupy us here, including an upcoming
disengagement with an ominous potential for strife, and a reviving
terror war that's taking a toll in lives, I could ask why it was
worth it to get up in the middle of the night and watch some
millionaires play basketball halfway around the globe. The answer
that comes to mind is -- fun, diversion; except that there's a
lingering sense of more than that.
There's a sense, instead, of having viewed a rich human drama,
full of emotional highs and lows, ultimately edifying.
There was, probably most memorably over the long term, the
heroism of Robert Horry in the fourth quarter and overtime of Game
5 when he personally saved the Spurs with an incredible performance
of clutch outside shooting and other great plays. Again, one could
ask what's "heroic" about a man playing a game well for which he's
compensated in seven figures. But anyone who has ever felt pressure
when the stakes are high, felt it corrode his confidence and
resolve, can only be amazed at Horry's apparent total equanimity
amid the late-game tension and mayhem, his eagerness to be
passed the ball for do-or-die three-pointers with a few seconds
left on the clock.
There was, too, the persistence of his teammate Tim Duncan, who
had to struggle for seven hard nights against the remorseless
defense of Detroit's Rasheed, Ben Wallace, and Antonio McDyess.
Duncan, sometimes rendered silent and ineffectual, sometimes
reduced to long strings of forced, missed shots, could easily have
got rattled and lashed out at the refs, his teammates, or the
defenders. But the only one he ever chastised was himself, his face
sometimes blazing with fury and disappointment at Tim Duncan; while
out on the floor he stolidly kept at it, riding out the peaks and
troughs, till finally prevailing with a stellar seventh game when
it was most needed.
Indeed, considering the level of "physicality" in the games, the
wide latitude for scuffling and shoving allowed by the refs, it's a
wonder that nothing worse ever erupted than some glares and
warnings in the fierce Bruce Bowen-Rip Hamilton match-up. Anyone
who has ever been to an NBA game, in particular, knows that this
sport is almost like football without the protective gear, the
combat under the basket especially brutal, and all the more so in a
close, hard-fought championship series.
Yet the dominant mood was of sportsmanship and mutual respect
between the teams, as expressed most vividly by the heartfelt round
of handshakes and hugs at the end of the last game, including the
embrace between the two coaches, the defeated mentor Larry Brown
and victorious pupil Gregg Popovich. The fans, too, in a world
where sports matches not infrequently degenerate into sprees of
bigotry and violence, generally showed class and decency,
enthusiasm without frenzy, partisanship without venom.
In an NBA that has become uneven in quality and professionalism,
it was a great series, particularly in the last three games when
both teams did well by themselves and it took, finally, the special
brilliance of San Antonio's great stars Duncan and Manu Ginobili to
finally tip the scales. I feel a little stronger for having watched
it.
topics:
Sports, Israel
