Ed Davis probably chews spearmint
but we're running late, so I don't have time to speculate just yet.
Delayed by highway closures and torrential rains I not-quite jogged the seven tenths of a mile from our Airbnb to the Moda center.
I am sad to miss warmups. They can be a lens into the personalities of players and teams, and, at NBA games in particular, often convince the casual observer - a group that includes me - that everyone on the floor is a 45% three-point shooter.
Lines balloon outside the entrance to the arena as Cavs radio man Tim Alcorn’s voice is repeatedly muffled and released by the now-jog-induced movement of the mouth of my left leg pant pocket.
The game is tied 4-4, and remains that way as Lauri Markkanen misses a free throw.
The Moda Center is draped in warm red light.
Alcorn’s voice is overpowered by the Portland broadcast audio booming from loudspeakers as we’re directed around the corner to a shorter security line. I pull the phone from my pocket, close the League Pass app and pull up the tickets.
What a gratifying switch.
The place is packed. A woman beckons me towards a sensor.
Scan. Pause. Green Light. Pleasant noise.
Swipe.
Scan. Pause. Green Light. Pleasant noise.
We hustle through security and the human traffic that would be overwhelming if not for the tunnel vision I’ve developed hoping nobody on the Cavs does and that our seats are good and that it will be an exciting game and holy shit these guys are human beings and not just familiar faces on my dusty laptop screen.
And now there is a number on the ceiling I think I recognize and there’s a right turn and there are stairs and the muted drone of a few thousand conversations simmering below the sound of the ref as he bounces the ball and then I’m shuffling sideways to our seats and Robert Covington has the skinniest legs I’ve ever seen.
If you have ever played Madden NFL 13 on the Wii, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. He’s an upside down isosceles triangle.
We miss the first half of the first quarter, and I’m still partially in shock as the rest of it drifts along into the buzzer. Whistle. Music.
Buzzer. Whistle.
Our seats are probably 8 rows behind the Cavs bench - closer than I’ve ever been - but the sounds of the court are as muted by the hum of the crowd as its energy is by the detailed observation afforded by our perch.
The pace of play and the energy on the bench feel casual.
They do this everyday.
But the ease and grace with which the players - yes, even Cody Zeller - move around the court, is interrupted in fleeting moments by a violent intensity.
Darius Garland tries to chase a gliding Dennis Smith Jr. around Jusuf Nurkic. His upper arm is all it takes to thoroughly reject DG. He’s spun completely around and knocked almost to the floor.
Nurkic is built like a bag of Quikrete, diluted with extra pebbles so that it strains your back and cuts your hands with its ridiculous heft and sharp angles. But he can still make the occasional above-the-break three pointer.
He hits one - a pick and pop following another lethal and potentially-moving screen.
38-34 Cleveland.
Timeout. Whistle. Buzzer. Music. Shouting through the loudspeakers.
Ed Davis patrols up and down the bench, thumbs resting in his pockets, chomping on probably more than one stick of gum.
Buzzer. Bounce. Whistle.
He only partially blocks the view of Dylan Windler as he catches a pass on the left wing, flicks his left wrist, and cans a three. Isaac Okoro, who’s out for the night, and Dean Wade, who’s on his way to a DNP, lock eyes and dap up behind the back of a resting Markkanen, psyched for their friend.
Nurkic, left alone outside of a paint crowded by trees, hits another three.
41-37 Cavs.
Garland meanders at the top of the circle, rejects a Jarret Allen screen, and steps back into a 30-foot pull up.
Anferee Simmons tries to push the pace to Nassir Little but passes the ball ahead instead to Lauri Markkanen, who finds Garland, who finds the net with a 32-footer.
I’ve lived under the impression, a widely enforced one, that good shooters swish their shots. Or, like Klay Thomsen, or line-drive hurling Kevin Love, they drill them.
Garland’s shot lives in a different category.
To say his shooting stroke is at all better than someone like Klay’s is hubris, but Garland’s shot somehow hits the net without the momentum required to produce a sound, least of all a swish. It simply, silently, softly, drops through.
Ed Davis is idling up and down the bench with art gallery pacing. He still hasn’t sat down.
I get that the sense that if anyone on the Cav’s young bench gets distracted - by a spilled drink in the crowd, a joke, a pretty lady - he’ll be on it nearly immediately to draw their attention back to the court, but he’ll also know the brand of the spilled beer, the punchline of the joke, and the mother of the woman in the stands.
Is he looking at me? Am I doing something wrong?
Buzzer. Public Address Announcer. Music.
Buzzer. Bounce. Bounce. Whistle.
Dennis Smith Jr glides into the lane and explodes off of his feet.
Jarret Allen and Nurkic claw at each other under the basket like they have all night. Watching them for more than three seconds makes me claustrophobic. Does this have something to do with the rule?
Buzzer. Music. Shouting through the loudspeaker.
It’s halftime. The Cavs lead by ten.
The University of Oregon dance team performs to a song I don’t recognize.
A Blazers fan gets 30 seconds to hit a shot for free seat upgrades.
Airball. Airball. Front rim. Back iron. Backboard. Net.
It’s the loudest cheer of the night.
Players trickle from the locker room. The ones who never had to take their sweats off come first.
Ed Davis is practicing post moves under the near basket.
Isaac Okoro and Brandon Goodwin are fidgeting with the pockets of their designer sweatpants, and when they erupt in a bout of poorly suppressed laughter, I’m not sure that Ed Davis, flicking hook shots over his left shoulder now, doesn’t chuckle to himself.
Buzzer.
Whistle.
Lamar Stevens badly misses a three with 20 seconds left on the shot clock.
Norm Powell hits one.
Timeout. Whistle. Buzzer.
Coach JB Bickerstaff glares at Lamar Stevens. He’s repeating, “my bad, my bad,” over and over as he sulks from the far corner of the floor, past JB’s clenched jaw and diamond-cutting stare, to the bench. Lamar sits down. JB backpedals to center court, and his assistant coaches hand him a clipboard, a marker, and I’m sure a number of relevant strategic observations. Still he stares at Lamar.
These guys do this almost every day. It’s often hidden under the slouch-inducing cushion of the chairs on the bench, the chomping of gum, but it’s really remarkable how much of a shit they still give.
“Obviously.” you might say. “They get paid so much money. They play a game for a living.”
But to see the grace and power of these huge humans up close is also to see the faces blur in the players’ eyes as they politely decline or accept high fives on the way to the locker room. It is to feel the enduring, irrhythmic repetition of whistles and buzzers and the low drone of the PA announcer clarifying that it is indeed a shooting foul, cut off only by the same songs and the same calls to “get on your feet and make some nooooise!!” from the hype man of insert potentially catchy but probably not corporate arena name here.
It’s the same in Portland as Dallas as San Francisco as Boston as Atlanta and Oklahoma City and probably sometimes as Cleveland too.
JB’s death stare is a reminder that this early-third-quarter mid-season west-coast-road-trip timeout, with The Weeknd playing in the background and tee shirts flying into the center sections, is still significant.
Lauri Markannen checks back in.
Buzzer.
Bounce. Bounce. Whistle.
With rare and momentary exception, good basketball players play within themselves, at a measured and controlled pace. Lauri is the consistent exception.
He’s the one guy on the court running around almost at full speed ALL the time.
Darius floats around, into, and through each possession, employing a few blindingly fast lateral bursts or hesitations where necessary. Lauri does the opposite.
He chases, and chases, and given a rare moment to regain some rhythm, cans a three.
Whistle.
It’s 62-50 Cleveland, and it’s utterly ridiculous that someone Markkanen’s size can sprint around with Norm Powell all night.
In person, Markkanen might be both thicker and taller than Jarrett Allen. He doesn’t play that way - which is why many think he’s soft - but to play as he does is impressive in its own right. In football, occasionally on a two point conversion or in short yardage a tackle will run off the line of scrimmage as an eligible receiver. Lauri playing small forward is like a tackle playing slot receiver every down.
Bounce. Whistle.
Another rib-splitting screen from Nurkic knocks a Cav off balance. This time it’s Jarrett Allen. He looks a bit miffed. Nurkic definitely got his arms involved.
Play continues and the two teams trade buckets or missed shots - I’m too sucked into the minutiae to even know the score at this point.
Whistle. Buzzer. Music. Shouting through the loudspeakers.
Jarrett walks straight to Cavs assistant Sydney Lowe. I can’t hear them - and I’m not much of a lip reader - but JA looks heated and Sydney Lowe is waving his hands at Jarrett, gesturing to him as if to say, “bring it on.” A half of a shake of his head - and about a shake and a half of his afro - and Jarrett gives Sydney a shove that I can’t tell from here is gentle. Sydney takes more than the necessary half step back and throws his arms in the air.
They laugh at each other and I’m still trying to figure out what it means (Buzzer. Whistle. Bounce. Bounce. Whistle.) until Anfernee Simmons gets a switch and calls Nurkic again for a pick and roll, who sets another hard screen on Jarret Allen, who takes more than the necessary half step back and throws his arms in the air.
Whistle. "Offensive foul on Portland. Cleveland Basketball."
Bounce. Whistle.
Dylan Windler tugs at the hem of his shorts. The three pointer he hit earlier is the kind of thing he was drafted to do a heck of a lot more often than he’s done so far in his young career.
You can see the gears turning.
His draft classmates and friends on the bench (which seems to include everyone for everyone on this Cavs team, by the way) are clearly rooting for him. But it’s tough to ignore the slight shake of a head or two when he absorbs contact in the paint and goes down grabbing his left leg.
Whistle.
Trainer Steve Spiro, whose gorgeous flowing hair is too-widely unappreciated, helps him to the bench.
Rondo, who has been coaching up Darius Garland all night, is huddled over a Cavs media guy checking out the picture he's just taken.
Ed Davis notices, pauses, does nothing. Rondo’s been around.
Buzzer.
Bounce. Whistle.
Is Evan Mobley really a rookie?
Robert Covington hits a three pointer over the not-quite-fully outstretched left arm of Kevin Love.
Timeout. Whistle. Buzzer. Music. Shouting through the loudspeakers.
It’s 79-71 Cleveland, and K-Love is pissed.
JB Bickerstaff, who now is staring only at the play he’s drawing up, does his best to shrug him off as Kevin apologizes and corrects himself, practicing stretching out his shot-contesting arm over and over. JB stared at Lamar Stevens like an angry uncle, or well, coach, but he and K-Love have the man-to-man respect of friends. He’s not mad, but Kevin wants him to be.
Un-chastised, K-Love walks over to the huddle.
Despite my lack of lipreading ability, it's not hard to figure out the one syllable words that he's muttering to himself.
He extends his left arm again. Practicing for next time.
He gets to the bench and to the huddle. “God damn it. That’s my bad guys.”
Still largely unacknowledged, he tries again to say he's sorry. But a hand on the shoulder and word from Lauri lets him know he’s heard and that it’s all good. Kevin takes a few big breaths and, I think, forgives himself.
Buzzer.
Whistle.
The Blazers are making a run.
The Cavs bench mob is standing as close to the sideline as they can get. I think they stand in enthusiasm - though the bench’s energy, while bought-in, still seems pretty mellow - but I also think it’s strategy.
It’s like when the one kid in 7th grade brought his new iPod Touch to school and everybody passed it around playing Cubefield. Inevitably, people crowd around whoever is playing. It’s a heck of a lot harder to steer when there are fifteen kids nervously peering over your shoulder, and you realize if you screw up you’re not going to get another chance because the line is long and recess is almost over.
I think this is what the Cavs are trying to do to Norm Powell, who I don’t even know is on the floor until his head emerges from above the shoulders of the looming Cavs reserves as he leaps into a corner triple that rattles around the rim and drops through.
Nassir Little is a little too far from the bench to be intimidated. He hits another three on the next possession and now it’s 101-96 with three minutes left to play and it’s definitely crunch time.
Like its players, the game’s rhythm is measured, controlled, and then violently interrupted, this time by Cedi Osman, who hits a three and gets a steal. And then Evan Mobley nimbly puts home a dunk and Darius gets a steal and makes a layup and draws a technical and makes a stepback three and it’s a 12 point game and it’s definitely over.
Buzzer. A few thousand footsteps like a collective, hesitant sigh. Music through the loudspeakers, more quietly now.
Some players stay on the court to greet friends. Some head quietly to the locker room. Some return high fives as they head into the tunnel. Some don’t.
It’s another night. Ed Davis is standing by the bench, chewing his gum.