It's been approximately 162 minutes since it happened . . . and, honestly, it hurts. It's a pain deep in the soul that I probably won't ever shake. To be that close to such a great moment -- only to see it slip through the fingers -- is still devastating. Somehow, it seems to have hurt more and more as the minutes progress as the realization set in regarding what exactly was at stake.
Sure, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't mean much. It's not something real. It's not a death or some other sort of real life tragedy. But given that following the Spurs is my only hobby in life, it's painful. I'm not going to even try to lie. It hurts.
I've tried getting away from it all to try to forget about it. But here I am, in the middle of my lunch break trying to eat, and all that I can see are memories of Kawhichael replaying again and again.
Logically, I know the pain doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's just a basketball game. And the Spurs already have five championships. And going into last season, a trip to the Playoffs would have been seen as a great success. , going over .500, I thought beating GS once was a success.
Logically, what the Spurs did last year was a great accomplishment. A year ago, if you told me the Spurs would be a playoff team without Kawhi, I would have been thrilled.
But damn.
This pain doesn't compare to anything else I've experienced in my Spurs fandom. Yeah, .4 sucked. The foul was tough to swallow. The no-look pass was unpleasant. The backdoor sweeps weren't fun. The frontdoor sweeps weren't enjoyable. But all of those don't even register compared to this.
I've had an extremely busy summer. Life is great -- never better. But it will continue to haunt me.
Hopefully the World Cup will provide some sort of relief. The great thing about sports is there is always tomorrow. For now, at least, the pain of yesterday outweighs the excitement of tomorrow. I'm hoping that changes. Starting tonight.