Saturday, January 21, 2017

Kevin Love ran off the court at the end of tonight's Cavs game

Well, since my last post, we've seen the Cavaliers win a title and the Indians come ever so close. We've seen the Buckeyes get sent home in tiny bits from the college football playoff. We've seen the Browns come perilously close to putting the "0" and "16" in 2016. We've even seen the Blue Jackets come within one game of tying an NHL record for consecutive wins. (You guys were watching that, right? Because that was pretty cool.) There have also been some politics.

So naturally, the event that sparks me to post something is the tail end of a regular-season Cavs game. It wasn't just any game -- it was a loss to the Spurs on our home court. But really, the framework of what inspires me to post in general these days is fourfold: (1) Something unusual must happen. (2) I must think of something interesting to say about it. (3) It must be something I don't think anybody else noticed. (4) ... And this is the most important one: There must be no small children around asking me for cereal or chocolate milk or toilet paper or shoes or where that one doll is that they're pretty sure they played with a couple of months ago and REALLY, REALLY NEED RIGHT THIS SECOND.

All right, well, as noted, the Cavaliers lost to the Spurs tonight on our home floor. This is nothing to be ashamed of, of course. If we played the Spurs 10 times on our home floor, we'd probably win six or seven. This happened to be one we lost. We probably aren't going to play the Spurs in the postseason, so it's not a major concern. You could make the argument that we should beat everybody on our home court if we expect to be a championship team. Are you saying that? Well, if you are, shut up. No team has ever gone undefeated at home. Not Jordan's Bulls, not Kareem and Magic's Lakers, not even World's Cavs. It was a hard-fought game, and we very nearly won.

The last play of the game involved Kevin Love getting an open look at a 3 that would have tied the game and sent it into a second overtime period. You can't ask for a better play than that in that particular situation. Love is an excellent shooter, especially for a big man, and when his hands hit the ball, there were three-tenths of a second left. Three-tenths, of course, is considered the minimum number of seconds required for a player to catch the ball and shoot it. Any less than that, and it's got to be a tip-in. Which is pretty difficult to get three points on.

Love missed. Hey, it happens. Even the best shooters miss more than half of their three-pointers. The thing that surprised me the most? Love missed and then IMMEDIATELY ran off the floor and into the locker room. I found that rather stunning. He practically sprinted away from the court. LeBron James and Kyrie Irving both went over to congratulate Greg Poppovich (I'm not sure I have the correct number of G's and/or P's, but I'm not going to look it up right now; shut up). Poppovich and/or Popovich and/or Ppppoppppovich was mad at his team for leaving Love open for a 3 in that situation, but that's totally irrelevant. I'm digressing all over the place.

Where was Love going? (I'm going to resist the urge to make a Supremes joke right now (The Supremes sang "Where Did Our Love Go?")) Why was he in such a hurry to get into the locker room? How badly did he have to go to the locker room? Did he have to go stand next to something or sit on it? Or perhaps kneel next to it? Was that something made of porcelain? Was the porcelain imported? Was it Italian? Why are the Cavs importing porcelain from Italy? What's wrong with American porcelain?

That's all. I found that funny. And I got 678 words out of it. Including this one.