Essay on the return: the Pacers, an impossible triumph and the magical return to the golden years
The triumph of Pacers against Knicks in Madison Square Garden in game 1 of the East Finals was a gift to the nostalgia knights.
The PACERS they came to lose for nine points at the last minute of the party against the Knicks. What they achieved, what they built, was not a triumph. Or at least it wasn’t just that. Because before them, 1,414 times happened in playoffs. From 1998 to here. And the perfect return, the imagined odyssey, had never been able to realize. Until Wednesday night.
The triples of Aaron Nesmith. The decision of Tyrese Haliburton. The scream at each point on planet Earth. The silence in the Madison Square Garden. The people against the big city. The most changing sport, more unpredictable, writing a golden page of adrenaline and emotion: Does anyone want to know what basketball is?
Take a seat. Welcome, all together, to the story of a return. To the epic that can envy cinema. To the infinite, eternal connection, between fiction and reality.
What would be of us without a pinch of all this? It does not usually happen followed. Perhaps, then, to value when those magical moments that make us fly. That allow us to close our eyes and draw a perfect return. A ticket towards childhood that made us fall in love with this sport to never leave it again. The land of the never in which everything was yet to be discovered. The years in which life was still a blank sheet. VHS times, from cassettes from side to -side B. because In that Haliburton hanging was Reggie Miller. The young man, the bony, the movie villain. The one who challenged Spike Lee to give us eternal moments that we could never forget. Urban legends that today are forced to rescue in a barbecue, in a meeting of friends, in a good night story to our children. Also, why not, in an AM850 note. What a privilege to live on what we like. There is again its essence of crack, its legacy of greatness, which returns for one night in the Tribes of Nesmith.
Did they think I had gone?
Eight points in nine seconds. The Iliad and the Odyssey. Penelope weaving the eternal shroud waiting for Ulysses. We are, that we were and that will be.
You will have smiled Reggie. John Starks will have suffered. The head Spike Lee, Pat Riley, Larry Bird and many others will have taken their heads.
We dream of returning somewhere. Somewhere. To the wonderful times in which they were all. Gathered in a room, around a table. In the living room of a house. Or maybe in a stadium. The cry of happiness. The hug in time that we can still feel, the memory of a memorable play. Where were you when it happened? Did you remember how you felt that time? Between tears, May nights, June, elusive. The memory arises and disappears. Time, through his numerous agents of progress, is ruthless. They ask us to always look forward. They use the mirror as a reminder. The marks on the face. The tired muscles. Return? For what? The effort is sterile, it is of no use to try: you cannot win an absurd and unequal battle.
However, the Navy of the Knights of Nostalgia, the army that pursues forgotten feelings, has once again decided to embark on the adventure. Haliburton, Nesmith and the Pacers have left us on the table a golden ticket to return for a while. There will surely my grandmother, my father and so many other friends waiting for me. Things, dear friends, do not end until they end.
Go back the times you need. Give up, never.
You never underestimate the power of dreams. The NBA of the Miracles, of the last second second shots, of the revolt nights, is back.
He returned. And next to her, we all returned.
