Portland beat the Lakers, one hundred thirty-six to one hundred twenty-nine, and I only held on to one thing: seventy-one free throws. Seventy-one. Do you know how many times I have to shut up during a free throw? Every time. It’s the house rule in our hall, and I respect it.
So picture my evening on the mic. Shot. Silence. Shot. Silence. The PA waiting. The club president’s nephew in his dinosaur costume, no longer sure whether he’s supposed to dance. And then, in the last seconds, Damian Lillard takes a three, and it goes in.
That’s when I do everything. The caretaker switches off his lights, well, half of them. The two school fête spotlights. “Mesdames et messieurs, dames en heren…” Two seconds of blank. “…Damian… Lillard!” [jingle]. Twenty-one points. Make some noise.
That’s what the ending deserved. A moment. Instead, the rest of the game mostly produced whistles, a technical for flopping on Ja Morant, two more flopping calls in the fourth quarter, Morant announcing an appeal, and Micah Nori thanking the NBA for finishing at almost two in the morning on the East Coast.
A free throw isn’t a time-out, Dimitri. You don’t get thirty seconds.
She’s right. I get nothing between free throws. But seventy-one times nothing ends up being a concert. Lillard got his jingle, and I spent the night holding it ready. Just saying.
It’s true, we checked: BeBasket.
