Hardwood Paroxysm: The greatest things we’ve ever seen on a basketball court

The second-greatest thing I ever saw in person was Russell Westbrook against the Pacers

By Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh)

I’ve never lived in an NBA city and my in-person NBA experiences have been limited. But the day after Thanksgiving, 2010, I had the privilege of watching Russell Westbrook take apart my beloved Indiana Pacers, piece by piece.

I’ve heard that athleticism and physical tools can be more impressive in person, but that certainly wasn’t my experience. We were sitting high and far from the basket, shrinking the physical space of the court and making the speed with which Westbrook covered it less striking. He was still clearly the best player on the floor that night. But all of the minute details viewable with the proximity afforded by TV cameras were simply absent from that distance. That’s not to say he didn’t impress, because he did (enough that I’m not writing about watching Dana Barros have his way with the Pacers about a decade before).

The game was an overtime win for the Oklahoma City Thunder and Westbrook’s line — 43 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 steals, 1 block, 13-24 from the field, 17-18 from the free throw line — was eye-popping. The thing is, in person, a player’s performance is experienced without the numeric accent of a box score. The true measure of Westbrook’s dominance in this game was that every time I looked up from my popcorn, or conversation with my nine-year-old twin cousins, he was either slicing through the lane for a layup or toeing the line to attempt another free throw. The persistence of his play was what was so impressive, like a video game on the most difficult level and the hopelessness that comes from knowing there’s nothing you can do to stop the computer.

In the end, all I had was constancy. He did literally everything, seemingly every moment. Even though I couldn’t see the box score, I could feel the weight of the numbers piling up. It was a privilege to see Westbrook do his thing, and a treat to experience him from an entirely different perspective.