This time of year is by far the busiest for a sports fan. Typically, both the NBA and NHL are in their playoffs with three or four games each night. The NHL is a bit sluggish this year, and there’s really only one playoff race, but it still means keeping an eye on it. The NBA is now deep in the first round where things get serious for teams that haven’t shed their streak yet. And of course baseball has started and as we know at any time in any ballpark in the country the gods may decide to shake the snow globe just to amuse themselves by seeing the chaos that ensues.
To sum up, with so much at stake and players locked up (or not locked up, as we’ll soon see), sometimes there’s a night when guys just ruin their shit on an epic scale.
There’s no point delaying the biggest highlight of the evening The Grizzlies’ 111-109 win over the T-Wolves, and one that generations of Malik Beasley’s family will have to carry around like a genetic disorder. If it is not actually causing this genetic disorder:
Give you another angle on this one:
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Beasley probably thought he had things under control, or at least got things right by getting out outside the restricted area and getting ready. That didn’t take into account Morant’s ability to turn into air when needed. This dunk is its own mosh pit filled with a cathartic anger few can understand. Even though the Grizzlies were still losing at the end of the third when Morant’s personal tsunami hit, it kind of felt like they couldn’t lose after that. This dunk has a violent righteousness that makes you believe real change in society is still possible.
And not Minnesota, of course, as Anthony Edwards decided last possession was the best time for trail technique while half-heartedly and brain dead he went for the steal on the wrong side of Morant, opening the alley like Wonka’s chocolate factory to a gold ticket holder :
Ah, but the broken shit wasn’t exclusive to the NBA last night. The Stars and Golden Knights played almost the only significant game on the NHL slate, with a few others revolving around seeding in the playoffs. But Dallas and Vegas were the only ones close to a do-or-die tilt. A victory for the Stars in regulation would have secured their place and ended the Knights’ season. A regular victory for the Knights would hardly have saved their hopes too reasonable. Any victory for the Knights would at least have kept them alive. Sad for them, glorious for the rest of us, the knights ate it in a Penalty shootout, 3-2, meaning the Stars only need to pick up a point from their last two games, which are home to the Coyotes and Ducks. And that’s if the Knights win their two remaining games. Any mistake and they’re toast.
On such a stage, Brayden McNabb got everyone in the audience reflexively singing, “Show me the way home, I’m tired and I want to go to bed!”
That’s McNabb, wearing the No. 3, watching Jason Robertson pass him like Paddington did when he first arrived in London, then go corkscrew right on his luscious duff in the perfect display of a controlled implosion. Demolition pundits had to wipe a tear from their eyes and marveled at the straight drop McNabb achieved on his journey to put Ass on Ice.
Ah, but we’re not done yet, friends. Not so much in the category of being a victim of a true star’s excellence, as both Morant and Robertson bestowed on Beasley and McNabb, but simply a rare collection of people pulling their noses out.
The Twins contribute to this grade school rendition of The Ice Storm when the first Trevor Larnach is caught on the second by the Tigers’ Robbie Grossman, who fails to catch that ball and fails to score despite going to the wall. Considering how far Grossman had to run, Larnach could have been a few paces behind second and still come back and be tagged, while Grossman regained his balance if he caught it while making himself available for a goal. Alas…but without the initial brain lock we wouldn’t have gotten the series of falling dominoes of stupidity (they’re in the next aisle opposite the ragged ends of sanity) that would follow.
Then Miguel Sano just started running because the mood was on him, causing chaos on the bases as the Twins would either have two runners in second or two in third.
Perhaps he witnessed all this idiocy and actually became absorbed in it, causing tiger catcher Tucker Barnhardt’s nervous system to shut down and his arms to act independently of the committee’s oversight. Because the bottom and top of his right arm definitely didn’t agree on that throw, forcing the ball to fly somewhere near the center of the target. Where was left fielder Auston Meadows to assist the throw? I can not find him. I suppose the level of play on display prompted him to flashback to a simpler time and he just pulled the glove over his head and looked for dandelions to pick and/or eat somewhere out on the warning lane.
Sometimes there is a full moon. Sometimes there are only charged ions in the air. Sometimes… well, as Bukowski once said, “The gods are waiting to delight you.” Sometimes they don’t.
