It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.  When you have a David vs. Goliath story, David is supposed to hit that big bastard in the face with a stone, everyone cheers, much drinking and getting laid ensues.  Goliath isn’t supposed to take the stone on the noggin, look vaguely  confused, and then knock over the kid, kick him in the stomach, and then punch him repeatedly in the nuts before putting him out of his misery.

That was not fun.  That collapse was probably one of the worst sports experiences of my life.  The Denver “Game that will not be named” was terrible because you could feel it was the end of an aborted era that had once held such promise.  But that game was Denver dominating and executing beautifully.  There wasn’t any question where that game was going by halftime.  It was sickening and sad in its implications, but there was no roller coaster of emotion then.

By halftime of this game, I was feeling good.  Nervous.  Not safe.  Good.  By the start of the fourth, I was celebrating a damn good win by an up-and-coming team.  I still felt the Pels weren’t winning the series.  I knew they weren’t likely to do this again.  But they had the game in hand.  It was one of those sports moments you just enjoy the hell out of.

And then, bit by bit, a disaster unfolded, and it wasn’t even clean.  If the warriors had just started raining threes and couldn’t miss, I would have been pissed off and disappointed, but able to shrug my shoulders and say “Welp, good on them.”  But they didn’t.  The Pelicans made them miss a ton of shots in that fourth quarter.  The Warriors were full on struggling to hit anything.

And the Pelicans couldn’t find a rebound.  My son isn’t in school today because he got a concussion from a basketball that missed everything and smashed him in the head while he was standing on the baseline talking to a pal.  His friend says it knocked him out for a few seconds.   He doesn’t remember it.

He was closer to getting a rebound than the Pelicans were in the fourth.  And that is the worst kind of slow, frustrating death.  I got to feel the brief moments of happy relief as the Pelicans forced another miss, only to see them miss the rebound and watch the Warriors score.  It was repeated nut punches.  My stomach grew tight, probably as tight as that Pelicans offense, with devolved into a bunch of guys waiting too long to get started and then trying to be heroes.

This game sucked.  It just sucked.  I lost sleep over it.  I know it’s game 3 in a series that we were going to lose anyways, but it still feels so damn crushing.

Sometimes, sports can be so unhealthy.

On to game 4?

(Side note: there won’t be a podcast before the next game.  Michael and I have some scheduling issues and can’t do it.  We’ll be back after game 4.)

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