by Shea Serrano
I stumbled back a bit, insta-realized I’d been hit, felt my body turn into a volcano, then charged at him so we could fight. It only lasted a handful of seconds before we got separated. I shouted some not nice things as they dragged us apart (“I’m gonna kill you, you moth-erfucker,” things like that), he shouted some not nice things (“Fuck you, little bitch,” things like that). We both got ejected and that was that. That was the end. That was the fight.
Now, to be thorough, I will tell you that the guy and I ended up talking about everything after the fact and he said that he didn’t intend to hit me, he was just trying to get the ball. I will also tell you that I didn’t believe him then and I still don’t believe him now. I think he was mad because I was running my mouth, which is completely understandable because that’s sort of the whole point of talking shit to someone during basketball.2
You’re allowed to talk shit while you play pickup basketball. You’re also allowed to ***whop*** someone in the head if they talk too much shit while you play pickup basketball. It’s all part of it. I love it all, even if it occasionally ends in a less than ideal manner.
Am I allowed to ________ during pickup basketball?
. . . take a charge . . .
No. 100 percent no. Really, they shouldn’t even call charging in the NBA, so you sure as shit shouldn’t call it during a game at the park or whatever.
. . . call a foul . . .
The answer to this one is no and also yes, and I don’t want you to think that that’s a clever way to step around this question, because it’s not. It’s just that there’s a clear and definite time when you’re allowed to call a foul and a clear and definite time when you’re not.
NOT ALLOWED: You’re not allowed to call fouls during pickup basketball if you’re the aggrieved party. That’s just not a thing you should do. If you get hit on a jumper or whacked on a drive to the basket, then that’s just some shit that happened to you. Have you ever heard of Floyd James Thompson? His plane was shot down during the Vietnam War. His body was burned, his back was literally broken, he took a bullet to the face. But he survived the crash. And his prize for surviving all that was getting to spend nearly nine years in enemy incarceration as a prisoner of war where he was regularly tortured and intermittently starved. That’s the longest POW prison term in American history. And do you know what happened after those nine years? He came home to America, that’s what. That’s it. That’s all. He survived all that with nary a peep and you’re telling me you can’t survive a slap on the wrist during a layup without demanding retribution? Unacceptable. If you rise up to shoot a three during a game and your defender busts you in the side of the head with a two-by-four, you don’t say a goddamn word. You just lie right there on the floor and let your brain ooze out of your head.3
YES ALLOWED: You’re allowed to call a foul if you’re the person who committed the foul. That’s the proper way the game should work. You clobber your guy on a shot, you just say something like, “Aye, I got him,” and then your team gives the other team the ball back and there you go. That’s a little thing called having some integrity and also some honor. That’s civility. That’s nobility. George Washington admitted when he fouled someone during pickup basketball. John Adams did, too. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton—they were all good for it. It’s right there in the Bill of Rights: “No pickup basketball player shall, during a game or even at game point, commit a substantial foul without admitting to it, in a manner prescribed by law.” That’s from the Third Amendment. James Madison wrote it in 1789. Still holds true today.
. . . call a three-second violation . . .
What the fuck? This is even worse than trying to take the charge because at least with taking a charge it requires some sort of physical dedication to the call. With a three-second call, literally all you did was count to three. Offensive three seconds, defensive three seconds—it doesn’t matter. A three-second violation is the most egregious of all calls. In order, it’s followed by
• The five-second violation. I guess at least this time you counted to five, which is almost twice as hard as counting to three.
• Carrying. Chill out. They don’t even call this in the NBA. Allen Iverson earned over 200 million dollars carrying the ball.
• Personal foul. See above.
• Shouting “First!” during a tie-up situation. Ridiculous. In the NBA, tie-ups are settled with a jump ball. In the NCAA and middle/high school basketball, they’re settled with a possession arrow. In pickup basketball, the ball always goes to the defense on a tie-up. It’s the reward for the bravery one must exhibit in forcing a tie-up. Shouting “First!” during a tie-up and getting the ball for doing so is like shouting “I win!” during a 100-yard dash and being given the first-place trophy.
• Traveling. Only the most appalling traveling calls can be made. It’s gotta be one of those situations where after the guy travels everyone just starts laughing at how terrible it was. Anything else is a play-on.
. . . play by 2s and 3s . . .
Eww. You’re not in the league, my dude. Relax. In pickup basketball, two-point shots are worth 1 and three-point shots are worth 2 and that’s just how it goes. And I know there’s been this quasi push in recent years to change this because of the way advanced analytics and metrics have been absorbed into basketball and basketball thinking, and so people all of a sudden realized that playing by 1s and 2s means that some shots are worth twice as much as other shots, but the thing of it is: That’s how it should be. And I don’t just mean it as a romantic or nostalgic tie to the past. Have you ever even tried to shoot a three-pointer outside on a double rim? You gotta be a top-tier assassin to get one of those to drop. It should absolutely be worth double.
. . . suggest we play zone defense . . .
I need you to go home, okay.
. . . inbound the ball from the sideline or under the basket if it gets knocked out there . . .
No. Go away. You always bring the ball up top and start play from there. And while we’re at it, you also have to pass the ball into play to start. You can’t just dribble it in after you’ve checked it. I don’t know what kind of lonely childhood you had where you didn’t have anyone to pass the ball to, but that shit’s not proper, man. Pass it in.
. . . cherry-pick . . .
No. The rule is if you don’t make it past the half-court line on defense, then you’re not allowed to score on the next offensive possession.
. . . leave the court after a game . . .
You’re not allowed to leave the court if your leaving means someone else has to sit out a game, too. So, say, there are 10 people at the court. If you stay, that means everyone gets to play 5-on-5. If you leave, now they gotta play 4-on-4 and that ninth player has to sit until the next game. And maybe he or she deserves to sit out for being the ninth best player, but that’s not the point.
. . . suggest we don’t play make-it-take-it . . .
Half court = make-it-take-it.
Full court = alternating possessions after made buckets.
. . . question the local rules . . .
In 2013, I was visiting a friend of mine in Austin. I was there for a couple days, and so on one of those days we ended up at the basketball court in his apartment complex. Some people were already there playing 21 and they were on the only court there that actually had a rim still attached to the backboard so we just jumped in on their game.
Now, these guys must’ve been some fucking Good Will Hunting–type math geniuses or something because they were playing this bizarre version of 21 where if someone tipped you (caught a rebound in the air and then tipped the ball in the hoop before his feet touched the ground), then the person who tipped you was awarded whatever points you had plus the two points for the basket he just scored. What’s more, if the sum total of the tipping player’s current points plus the points he stole from you was higher than 21 then his score defaulted to 17, unless he was already at 17, 18, or 19, in which case he was allowed
to decide between (a) automatically being declared the game’s victor, or (b) moving everyone else’s score back by up to 10 points. It was the most ridiculous shit of my whole life. I’d never heard of 21 played in that manner before, and I haven’t heard of it played that way anywhere else since. But that’s the way I played that day because those were the home team’s rules. You’re never allowed to question the local rules, even if they are absolutely psychotic.4
1. I feel confident in describing the guy in the fight here as “the last person” because I know I’m never going to get in a fight on a basketball court again. As I’m writing this, I’m 35 years old. By the time this book comes out I will be 36 years old. 36-year-olds don’t fight during pickup basketball games. There’s for sure yelling. And there’s definitely pre-fight theater. But that’s it. The older you get, the more invested you become in just yelling at people. The amount of time you spend yelling goes up and the amount of time you spend fighting goes down. When you’re 20, the pre-fight conversation is super short. One guy fouls someone too hard and the other guy goes, “What the fuck, man?” and then that’s it. The fight starts. When you’re 36, the pre-fight conversation is endless. One guy fouls someone too hard and the other guy goes, “What the fuck, man?” Then the first guy goes, “What, bitch?” and takes a step forward. Then the second guy goes, “What the fuck did you just say?” and he takes a step forward, too. Then the first guy goes, “You heard me.” Then the second goes, “Say it again. Make your mouth say it again and I’ma kill everyone in this bitch.” Then the first goes, “I. Said. What. Bitch.” Then the second guy goes, “Oh, you really said that shit again, huh?” And the first guy nods. Then the second guy nods. Then it’s 10 minutes later and they’ve both threatened to burn the other one’s house down or whatever. And it just goes on and on and on and on. I’m glad to finally be at that stage of my pickup basketball career. Threatening to burn someone’s house down is just as fulfilling as fistfighting him. That’s the sort of thing only time and experience can teach you.
2. Or in life, really.
3. I wrote an article called “The NBA Fan’s Guide to Talking Trash During Pickup Basketball” when I was working at Grantland in 2014.
4. All the things mentioned in this chapter notwithstanding.
WHO HAD THE BETTER BIG-NAME GAME UNDER DURESS?
There are nine legit contenders for the The Greatest Big-Name Game Under Duress title. In chronological order, there’s George Mikan’s Cast Game (April 11, 1949), Willis Reed’s Broken Leg Game (May 8, 1970), Bernard King’s Flu and Fingers Game (April 27, 1984), Isiah Thomas’s Sprained Ankle Game (June 19, 1988), Larry Bird’s Cracked Cranium Game (May 5, 1991), Michael Jordan’s Flu Game1 (June 11, 1997), Kobe Bryant’s Sore Ankle Game (June 14, 2000), Derek Fisher’s Taken Game (May 9, 2007), and LeBron James’s Hurt Feelings Game (June 13, 2016). Of those nine, we can eliminate one on a technicality, two because the player’s game wasn’t quite good enough, one out of good taste, one because the stakes weren’t high enough, one because it got eaten up by history, and one because the duress in question (probably) wasn’t really all that bad.
THE TECHNICALITY: We lose George Mikan’s Cast Game here. Mikan broke his wrist during Game 4 of the 1949 Finals, then played Game 5 while wearing a cast (he scored 22 points). That’s pretty impressive, but it also happened in the BAA (Basketball Association of America), not the NBA, so it gets tossed out.
THE TWO THAT JUST WEREN’T QUITE GOOD ENOUGH: First, we lose Kobe’s Sore Ankle Game. He’d sprained his ankle during Game 2 of the 2000 Finals, missed all of Game 3, then played 47 minutes in Game 4, the most crucial of which being the last three or so minutes of overtime after Shaq had fouled out. He scored six points over that stretch, including an offensive rebound and putback that put the Lakers up three for good. Had he done it all in the same game as the one when he actually sprained his ankle, this game probably would’ve squeaked its way into the final four. Since he didn’t, though, it doesn’t.
Second, we lose Willis Reed’s Broken Leg Game. Two reasons here: (1) While Reed’s willingness to play in the game was obviously a very big emotional lift to his team, Reed ended up only scoring four points that night.2 He made for a great totem, then, but that was about it. (2) As the years have gone on, the Willis Reed Broken Leg Game has grown a bigger and bigger shadow, as it should, because playing basketball with a broken leg is incredibly unbelievable. The thing of it is, though, Reed didn’t actually have a broken leg. He had a torn muscle in his leg.
THE ONE THAT GETS CUT FROM THE CONVERSATION OUT OF GOOD TASTE: We trim away Derek Fisher’s Taken Game here. It happened during Game 2 of the Conference Semis of the 2007 playoffs. Fisher was playing with the Jazz at the time and they were matched up against the Warriors. He’d missed almost all of the game because he’d been in New York with his family while his 10-month-old daughter underwent eye surgery to treat a form of cancer. Following the surgery, he flew to Utah, showed up to the arena in the third quarter, then eventually hit a dagger three in overtime to help the Jazz win. His daughter was in danger. He was there for her. Then he (metaphorically) killed some guys. That’s basically Taken, so that’s why I’m calling this the Derek Fisher Taken Game. We can cut it from the silliness of this chapter’s discussion just as a matter of respect.3
THE ONE WHERE THE STAKES WEREN’T HIGH ENOUGH: Game 5 of the first round of the 1991 playoffs. While diving for a loose ball late in the first half, Larry Bird all-caps SLAMMED his face on the floor. He stayed down on the court for a bit, definitely broken, possibly dead, then peeled himself up and disappeared off to the locker room. Dread filled the Garden. He returned in the third quarter and fucking dominated. He finished the game with 32-9-7. The Celtics won by three. His legend won by a billion.
THE ONE THAT GOT EATEN UP BY BIGGER HISTORY (TWICE): The Knicks and the Pistons met in the first round of the 1984 playoffs. In the elimination Game 5, Bernard King, playing with a dislocated middle finger(!) on each hand(!!) and also the flu(!!!), put up 44–12(!!!!) to push the Knicks to victory, which is incredible because one time I had a hangnail and I briefly considered just cutting off my hand and being done with it. Bernard’s game got overshadowed by (1) Isiah Thomas, who scored 16 points in 93 seconds to send it into overtime, and (2) Jordan’s bigger, badder, sexier Flu Game. (I love Bernard’s Flu Game a whole bunch. Poor Bernard. He never gets his due.)
THE ONE WHERE THE DURESS WASN’T ACTUALLY REALLY ALL THAT BAD: In the postgame press conference following Game 4 of the 2016 Finals, Klay Thompson, reacting to LeBron getting extra mad at Draymond Green during the game, implied that LeBron overreacted to Draymond’s barbs, then finished by saying, “I guess his feelings just got hurt.” LeBron, intent on etching the Hurt Feelings Game into the canon, responded in Game 5 by throwing up 41-16-7, which is just so, so gross. The Cavs won that game, and eventually won the series. I don’t want to say that playing with hurt feelings is heroic, but I also don’t want to not say that, you know what I’m saying?
But so that leaves us with just two games:4 Isiah Thomas’s Sprained Ankle Game (1988) vs. Michael Jordan’s Flu Game (1997). One of those is The Greatest Big-Name Game Under Duress of all. Which one, though?
Let’s sort through the five main parts of the games and their surrounding lore, choose a winner for each category, then add up the wins and see which game was the greatest.
1. WHOSE STAKES WERE THE HIGHEST?
The difference here is really on a granular level. Both games happened in the NBA Finals (Isiah’s was the 1988 Finals, Jordan’s was the 1997 Finals). Both games happened on the road (the Pistons were in LA, the Bulls were in Utah). Both games happened against teams that were genuinely good (the Lakers won 62 games that season, they were the defending champs, and they would return to the Finals the following season for a rematch with the Pistons; the Jazz won 64 games that season, Karl Malone was the league’s MVP, and the Jazz would return to the Finals the next year for a rematch against the Bulls). And both games hap
pened late in each respective series (Isiah’s was Game 6 of a series they led 3–2, Jordan’s was Game 5 of a tied series). So, like I said, it’s really very close.
THAT SAID, there is a difference here, and it’s on account of two things:
(1) Had the Bulls lost Game 5, they’d have returned home for Game 6 and Game 7, and that would’ve likely worked out well for them given that (a) they were 39–2 at home that season, and (b) they’d already beaten the Jazz in Chicago in Game 1 and Game 2. So there’s that. Also, and this is just fodder, but the Jazz were 38–3 at home that season. Them winning all three of the games there wouldn’t have been terribly surprising. “That’s what they were supposed to do,” Phil Jackson probably would have said, because Phil Jackson is a master of undermining things other teams do.
(2) There weren’t really any residual effects on Jordan from The Flu Game. I mean, people said that there were, and maybe if you squinted you see him a tiny bit below 100 percent, but still, 94 Percent Michael Jordan is still basically unbeatable. He put up 39-11-4 to end the series in Game 6.5 For Isiah, on the other hand, he knew that he wasn’t going to be right in Game 7. As a matter of comparison: Thomas had 43 points, 8 assists, and 6 steals in Game 6. In Game 7, just two days after the sprain, he had 10 points, 7 assists, and 4 steals. But so what I’m saying is he knew it was either the Pistons win the championship in six or they lose the championship in seven. There weren’t any other ways around it.
Winner: Isiah gets the nod here. It’s by a tiny amount, but it’s still an amount.
Tally: 1–0, Isiah
2. DID THE PLAYER ACTUALLY WIN HIS GAME?
Jordan and the Bulls won by two, 90–88. Isiah and the Pistons lost by one, 102–103.