DNHQ After Dark: The Warriors, the Pacers, and the grace we give

Golden State blows an 11-point lead in Indiana. On Nana's living room floor, three generations learn grace together.

So I’m guessing you heard the news that yesterday the Golden State Warriors just blew a road game against the previously 0-5 Indiana Pacers? Hilarious. Let me put you my Gold Blooded brain to understand my thoughts.

Flashback to last Saturday afternoon where my brother-in-law and I are giggling like schoolboys as we flip through the cable package options on Nana’s TV. The Warriors are about to tip off, and we both know what we’re not saying out loud: this winless, injury-decimated Pacers team should get steamrolled. The joke writes itself if Golden State somehow blows this one.

Nana asks us to install the sports package for just one day so we can all watch together. One day. That’s how much Warriors basketball means this family..

Everyone settles into the plush couches as Fitz and Kelenna’s voices fill the living room. My two little nephews sprawl out on the rug in front of the TV, oblivious to the game, building their own little worlds. And me? Maybe it’s the gray hairs sprouting through my beard, but I’m suddenly hyperaware of the hum of family time around the game. That same hum I’ve heard my whole life.

I’ve been coming to my Nana’s lovely home in the Oakland hills since I was in my mama’s belly. This house has always meant quiet warmth to me. It’s the home my father was a boy in, with pictures of family everywhere and a dining room table where my core memories live. “No elbows on the table” and hot, tasty spaghetti. That’s what I remember.

My earliest memory of a basketball game was John Paxson hitting the game winner for the Chicago Bulls over the Phoenix Suns, and the entire household going absolutely gaga in this very living room. My parents, sisters, uncles, cousins, and grandparents all energized around the TV screen.

Good ol’ NBA on NBC, amirite?

Nana and Grampa were connected to that bygone era of Oakland living, when sports celebrities were neighbors and it was casual for legends like Clem Daniels and Joe Morgan to just stop by. My whole life I’ve been hearing stories about star athletes and the resilience and professionalism they embodied to get where they were.

So for me personally, it feels like a sacred space of family heritage, prayer, and sports shenanigans.

As the self-appointed Gold Blooded King here, I know the Warriors to be a dynasty. Meanwhile, Nana looks at it from the several decades-long helicopter view of these silly Warriors always doing something ridiculously heartbreaking. Probably except for Stephen Curry in her heart. He’s the best!

The game kicks on, but my eyes drift to the soft carpet on the floor. The infant practices rolling on the rug, and I watch him discover the movement for the first time. Left side first, then he freaks out. I roll him back the other way and his eyes go wild with terror. Then slowly, he pushes himself into another roll in that direction. Then another. Then another until he becomes a little chunky tumbleweed discovering motion for the first time in his little life.

What was once terrifying becomes an adventure, then routine, until he processes it in his databanks as a core memory. Learning on the fly.

His toddler older brother stacks Jenga pieces, confused as to why I’d alternate their positioning with each layer of the column. After a while, he begins to do it himself, staring into my eyes to study my response. When I quietly approve, he begins to stack them faster and faster until his column comes up to his little chin.

He turns to his mom and shouts, “LOOK! MOM, LOOK!” His hands thrust toward the Jenga blocks like LeBron gesturing at JR Smith in the Finals against us. When she beams at him with appreciation and he knows he has her attention, he immediately kicks the column over and jumps up and down, waiting for her reaction.

Learning. Testing boundaries. Seeking grace.
That’s childhood, but it’s also basketball. Every dynasty has to relearn those same lessons when it thinks it has mastered gravity.

On the TV, the Pacers crowd is roaring. This is the biggest game of their season so far. Everyone wants to see the Warriors when they come to town, even when Indiana is 0–5 and decimated by injuries. Tyrese Haliburton is out for the season after tearing his Achilles in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Four other key Pacers are sidelined. What’s left is Pascal Siakam, Aaron Nesmith, and a point guard on a two-way contract who would be in G League training camp right now if Indiana were healthier.

Our family watches with raised eyebrows and smug smiles as the Warriors struggle through their rough night. We’ve seen so much of this over the years. Brief periods of exhilarating parades sandwiched by decades of plucky ineptitude. The Warriors led by eleven points in the fourth quarter, 104–93, after Steph hit a three with just over six minutes left. Then everything collapsed.

The Pacers outscored them 21–5 until the final buzzer. Steph went 4-for-16 from three with 5 turnovers with a plus/minus of twenty-one. Jimmy Butler, Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody, and the young guys fought hard, but the execution down the stretch was awful. Indiana got career highs from both Nesmith with 31 points and Quenton Jackson with 25 points, 10 assists, and zero turnovers.

Steve Kerr didn’t mince words after the game. “We know the West is loaded, and it feels like we just gave away two games that if we are locked in and focused, playing the way we know we can play, then we should have won them. We have to find a way to be sharper and to be better.”

Here’s the thing. No one knows better than Coach Kerr that teams blow it against inferior competition every year.

Did you know the 72-win Bulls lost to the expansion Toronto Raptors? I’m scrolling through that box score on my phone while the nephews play and the postgame show drones on. March 24, 1996. Bulls 108, Raptors 109. Michael Jordan had 36 points. Scottie Pippen added 10. Toni Kukoc had 23. And they still lost to an 18–49 Raptors team. And Kerr? He had 17 points off the bench in that loss.

Perusing through that Toronto roster, a familiar name catches my eye: Carlos Rogers. A year prior to him being a part of history and beating the Bulls, he was a first round pick for Golden State. My Nana has a picture of me posing with him after a Warriors game in 1995. Little-boy me standing next to a certified giant. I can say in all seriousness there was a brief period of my life where Carlos Rogers became one of my favorite players, until I could start understanding how to read box scores and realizing there were many many other guys I should connect my rooting interest to. But give little Dan some grace there, for when there was a time when the moment mattered more than the stats.

One way I’ve been thinking lately about grace as an uncle, boss my job, and internet comment reader is letting people figure things out on their own without condemnation… while quietly doing your part to set boundaries to keep them from drifting into something harmful. It’s what I watched my sister do with her boys at Nana’s.

As I watch these nephews on Nana’s floor, with Warriors basketball humming in the background the way it always has, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude. They’re going to grow up with this sound around them too. They’ll probably never know what it was like before Steph Curry made this whole thing normal. And honestly, that’s beautiful.

Look at that rocking Pacers crowd. They may be wearing Indiana jerseys, but deep down they came to see the Warriors too. They showed up to root their heavy dog against the carnival attraction that is the Warriors dynasty. They wanted to see their team not just get the first win of the season, but do it against the Dubs.

The Warriors will learn from this, just like my nephews are learning, and heck even me. We’re all learning. What a beautiful thing grace is. The passage of time allows people to learn, because we’re all doing it on the fly. Some nights you’re the baby terrified of rolling. Some nights you’re the toddler kicking over your Jenga tower. Some nights you’re the 72-win Bulls losing to an expansion team. Some nights you’re the Warriors blowing an eleven-point lead to a winless Pacers squad.

But the good Lord gives us another game. Another dinner. Another season. Another chance to gather in Nana’s living room. Everyone’s learning under grace; that’s the inheritance.

Let’s give the Warriors a little grace.

Or not. Either way, comment about how you feel below. I gotta get some sleep.