Intense again

Brilliant competitors in their element over the playoffs' first weekend

Victor Wembanyama’s mentality in his first playoff game was perfect: At once cauldron of competitiveness and a zen master. RONALD CORTES/GETTY IMAGES

What a breath of fresh air! And what a travesty the end of the season was by comparison. This is the NBA when guys are fucking trying, defending everywhere, all over the court.

NBC loves to show their stuff from the nineties, when NBC was the NBA, right? And I’m sure it’s not the intent, but what they’re showing most of the time is eight guys standing around, one guy dribbling with another guy guarding him. No one’s really guarding anyone outside 15 feet.

And then we revert to today’s live action, and guys are moving everywhere, guys being guarded everywhere, all over the court. It’s so physical.

I talked to a player who played Sunday, and he watched all the games on Saturday, just kind of getting the flavor of the intensity of the games. We talked about the refereeing and my thought was: it was the same. It was relatively physical, to a poi…