Photograph by Erik Drost, via Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.
At times of especially blessed sports spectatorship, which the Knicks’ past few weeks have undoubtedly been, I often return to David Foster Wallace’s 2007 essay “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart.” Ostensibly a pan of the tennis player’s 1992 memoir, Beyond Center Court, the piece is really about the perceived chasm between a great athlete’s genius and their apparent inability to talk about it after the fact. Whether players are recounting their in-game heroics moments later, as in a postgame interview, or years later, as in memoir form, they tend to deliver the same clichés: We’re taking each game one point at a time, focusing on the fundamentals, believing in the team.
I thought of this again after Game Four of the NBA Finals, when OG Anunoby addressed reporters at Madison Square Garden. They were marveling at his now-famous tip-in, sunk with 1.2 seconds left on the clock. “You just hit the game-winning shot in an NBA Finals game in front of your home crowd,” asked one reporter. “How does that feel?”
“It feels cool.” This said shrugging. “I mean, everyone’s pretty excited. I’m excited too.”
An eruption of laughter; OG’s guileless what-am-I-supposed-to-say smile. “We’re all excited,” he elaborated. “We’re just focused on the next game now.”
