The Thunder beat the Spurs, a hundred and sixteen to a hundred and four, on Tuesday night. First game of the season. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finished with thirty-two points, thirteen of twenty-seven. Noted.
A few hours earlier, Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, said on The Pat McAfee Show that the player was heading towards the Finals again, “at least that’s what their hope is”. People online wrote that he had leaked the script. I don’t have a script. I have a folder.
At our place, nobody announces the end of the game before the opening tip. The club president tried once, at the club bar, on a Saturday at half past eight. I reset the clock to zero in front of him. He didn’t try again.
After the win, the player said: “We gotta do it 81 more times and be ready for the playoffs, if we get a chance to make it.” Asked what the game meant, he answered: “I mean, not much, to be honest with you. This game doesn’t really mean that much. The first game of the season.” That’s what I think of every first matchday. It goes in the column like the others.
There are 81 games left. That makes 81 scoresheets. I don’t fill in the eighty-second before that.
Scoresheet line: 116-104, buzzer, nothing else marked.
It’s true, we checked: BasketNews.
