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| Shane Battier is unimpressed. |
I’m about to describe a feeling that may be unfamiliar to you unless you get off on unusually large men moving unusually nimbly.
Sometimes this thing happens to us sports fans where we’ll be innocently taking in a game when all of the sudden there is some swift movement that violates expectations to such an extent that it causes us to make a loud noise which usually sounds something like “HOOOO” followed by uncontrollable laughter, shaking our heads like we have water in our ears, and perhaps a single large clap or two. It’s a quite strange behavior, really, and you know it by the look on your dog’s face.
Basketball seems like it’s a game intentionally designed to induce this behavior in certain vulnerable males, and in fact it was basketball that got me last night. It got me so intensely that I was still feeling a little goosebump-y when I woke up this morning.
LeBron gives me at least a minor version of this feeling pretty much every time he jump steps past three defenders with the force of a linebacker shot out of a cannon and then softly lays it home. But last night it wasn’t something LeBron did; it was something someone did to LeBron.
LeBron, if you didn’t know, is an amazing defender. Most people want to see what LeBron can do with the ball in his hands and the game on the line. I can tell you what he’s going to do: He’s going to take a jump shot from 18+ feet away and 62% of the time he’s going to miss. Not that interesting. To me it’s at least 180x more interesting to watch him play one-on-one defense in end-of-game situations, and that’s because what typically happens is that he not only humiliates the offensive player – the best offensive player on their team, by the way – but he emotionally violates them. As the offensive player dances around trying to get fancy in an attempt to find fresh air, LeBron effortlessly glides along in front of them, keeping his big bearded grill mere inches away from theirs, presumably staring into their soul with a silent but also very loud message of “I Dare You.” The end result 80% of the time is a terribly awkward-looking jump shot where instead of following through they snap their hands back as if to demonstrate innocence.
That was just to give you context, because last night LeBron got absolutely victimized. At this point I wish I could shut up and just give you the video, but I searched desperately for it last night and came up empty.
Probably the reason why I can’t find video is because Chris Paul missed the shot, but I tell you the way he got open made me scream. It was less of a “HOOOO” and more of a shriek.
There were 3.5 seconds to go in a tied ballgame, Chris Paul had the ball about 30 feet away, and LeBron was in his grill as usual. Then certain events transpired which I am still unable to wrap my brain around and so cannot describe them to you except to say that somehow through a couple of unfathomable changes of direction Chris Paul ended up taking an open jump shot from the free-throw line with LeBron standing behind him and to the side, too far away to even make an attempt to alter the shot.
My reaction was such that Khan woke up, stood up, shook off, and kind of irritatedly made the 10 feet trek across the living room to make sure the world had not descended into chaos. I couldn’t help it, I told him.
Update: I found the clip, but I’m afraid it’s going to be terribly disappointing in the context of a YouTube video narrated by a couple of bored dudes. It starts around 2:18.
I think I’ve experienced this feeling in response to only two sources: sports and nature docs. What’s the point of it? Why is my brain designed to get so intensely excited when one large man makes a nimble move on another large man? Or when a cat in a nature doc does something crazy unexpected like snatch a flying bird out of the air? Is this a byproduct of something else? If so, what? Or is my brain just trying to learn some new tricks in case I should ever need to make a nimble move on an unusually large man?
On the one hand, it seems random and absurd. On the other hand, the feeling can be so intense that it’s hard to believe it’s there by mistake.
In summary, I’m confused. But I also want more.
