Television is dead, and video games are here to stay. This is what I learned at the game tonight. Watching the game on the court below and on the Jumbotron above, you see how much the screen lies. The court is always open, retreating and regrouping is always an option, and teams will gleefully go around the horn if you give them the chance. Video games recognize this truth: as long as they have existed, they have emphasized the distances, the passing, the unexpected thrill of the drive to the basket when the space opens up. And sportscasts have fought this reality: they zoom too far in, focus too closely on the ball, fill the screen with a tangle of limbs. Television's field of view cuts too narrow an arc, but when you can take in the whole of the court in a glance, you can see things.
Me, I saw Patrick Ewing. He resembles nothing quite so much as the Colossus of Rhodes: he's huge, ancient, and a shattered ruin of his former self. You want to avert your eyes every time he lumbers down the court, every time players six inches and sixteen years his junior bully him around. His game is a painful lesson in humility; with his size, he's never needs to do more than stick his arms out and he's open, but he can't drive and he can't dunk, and it shows in his eyes and in his posture. Patrick Ewing is a beaten man, and when they sub him out five minutes into the half, it has the feel of a mercy killing. From dust were ye born, and to dust shall ye return.