The long game

How to win by sticking around, plus my weekly shareables

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Sometimes you have to learn a lesson three or four times before it sticks. The New York Knicks taught a valuable lesson over and over in the NBA Finals. The lesson matters way beyond basketball.

San Antonio led on the scoreboard for 72 percent of the five Finals games. They had double-digit leads on the Knicks in the first quarter of all five games. They led by 29 points in the third quarter of the instantly famous Game 4. They led by 10 in the fourth quarter of last night’s Game 5.

But game after game, the Knicks chipped away. And game after game, except for Game 3*, San Antonio faded at the end. Especially in last night’s clinching game, you could almost see the Spurs shrink at the end. Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio’s ridiculously gifted star, is listed at 7-4. Some experts think he’s really 7-5 or 7-6. By the end of the game he looked 6-2. And Knicks guard Jalen Brunson, who is listed at 6-2 but might be even shorter, played like he was eight feet tall.

*The game our current president attended was the only game the Knicks lost. Correlation is not causation. But it does make a good metaphor.

Here was the difference between the Knicks and the Spurs: The Knicks kept going, even when things were hard. The Spurs could not.

Part of that was strategy, I think. The Spurs played such smothering defense at the beginning of each game—that’s how they built those big leads—that they had worn themselves out by the end. They made the kinds of mistakes you make when you’re exhausted.

But part of it was simple experience. The Spurs were one of the youngest teams to ever make the Finals. The Knicks were full of veterans. And the Knicks knew one of the great secrets of competition: You often win just by sticking around.

This is what I tell every journalism class I speak to. It also applies in pretty much every field. There will be times in every career when things get hard—the work is a grind, you have a terrible boss, you’re not getting paid enough, whatever*. Many of your peers will not be able to make it in those moments. There’s no shame in that—we all have to make our own decisions about what we can tolerate. Sometimes the value of a job is that it shows you what you don’t want to do. But if you really do want something, and you stick with it, often your competition will take care of itself.

*This doesn’t mean you should just shut up and take it … it’s OK to complain about a bad boss or ask for a raise. It’s just not always a reason to quit.

Winning an NBA title is the hardest thing in team sports. You have to win four seven-game playoff series to do it. One seven-game series is hard enough—by the end, the other team knows all your tendencies and all your flaws. By the time a team gets to the Finals, it is completely exposed. The Knicks and Spurs knew what the other wanted to do and how they wanted to do it. It became a question of willpower and skill. Both of those things favor the ones who know how to persevere.

Jalen Brunson, the Knicks’ star, scored 45 of their 94 points last night. His dad, Rick Brunson, is a Knicks’ assistant coach. Rick Brunson also played in the NBA, but he was the opposite of a star. His career scoring average was three points a game. Jalen remembers his dad working out every a day in the summer, hoping to latch onto a team in training camp, almost always playing on short-term and non-guaranteed contracts. He managed to stretch his career to nine seasons, playing 337 games with eight different teams.

There were surely thousands of players more talented than Rick Brunson who never stuck in the league. They had the talent but not the—willpower? stubbornness? drive?—whatever it takes to keep going when the dream feels far away. The father passed something to the son. And last night, in the fourth quarter, Jalen Brunson kept making buckets while his younger, taller, faster opponents slowly fell away.

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10 things I wanted to share this week:

1. My other piece this week was about watching through the windows. (The NBA season is over now! The sportsball coverage will taper off, I promise!)

2. My friends Joe Posnanski and Michael Schur were all over the TV screens and podcast studios promoting their fantastic book, BIG FAN … here they are on LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS.

3. Two more of my favorites: The NYT’s Wesley Morris writing about Steven Spielberg.

4. Spielberg’s new movie is DISCLOSURE DAY, but I keep wanting to call it DECORATION DAY after the Drive-By Truckers song. I mean, it’s a hell of a song.

5. RIP David Hockney, who did a ton of different things in his art career (he spent his last few years making art on iPads) but is best known for his sun-drenched scenes like A BIGGER SPLASH. (The Guardian)

   

6. I think this might be the first recipe I’ve shared in this newsletter … this chicken and black bean skillet dish has become our go-to when company comes. We’ve made it twice recently in one of my mom’s old cast-iron skillets. It’s a hit every time. (NYT Cooking)

7. I loved this bit of stranger-than-fiction lore about a couple and an old baseball game. (Keeping the Book)

8. Euro mystery update: We watched the second season of PATIENCE, a really well-made series about an autistic police records clerk who (of course) has a knack for solving murders. The lead actor (Ella Maisy Purvis) is captivating, and I love that the show includes Patience’s meetings with an autism support group—you see the wide range of neurodivergence. (PBS)

9. Really looking forward to the documentary CHRIS & MARTINA: THE FINAL SET, about the tennis rivalry that turned into a friendship that turned into a mutual aid society as both players dealt with cancer.

10. I found myself in a bit of a prog-rock phase this week—I think it has something to do with all my Rush-loving friends being thrilled over their new tour with their new drummer. (She sounds awesome, by the way). This is not my favorite style of music by any means, but I’ve always thought that every type of music produces something worth listening to.
    In my college days at UGA we used to go to a bar called TK Harty’s—they had a big deck and mixed Long Island teas by the barrel. The musical entertainment was often a singer/guitarist named Bruce Crichton. He ran ads touting his gigs constantly, to the point I got irritated enough to poke fun at him in a column I wrote for the student newspaper. The next time I went to TK Harty’s with my friends, Bruce came over to my table and complained about the column. I briefly thought he wanted to fight, but he said his piece and moved on. I’ve often regretted giving the guy grief. He wasn’t my favorite singer, but he was trying to make a living. And I will give him this: He did a lovely version of “From the Beginning,” the old Emerson, Lake & Palmer song. I woke up the other morning with it playing in my brain, and I thought of him.

Upcoming events

June 24: I’ll be interviewing Denise Kiernan about her new book OBSTINATE DAUGHTERS, 7 p.m., at Park Road Books in Charlotte.

—TT

Have a great rest of your weekend, everybody.

My books DOGLAND and THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM are available in all formats pretty much everywhere books are sold.