<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bank shots! What is there about a deep\nshot that kisses the glass so perfectly that it ricochets through the\nrim and hangs the net in a peculiar sideways fashion? It’s a work of\nathletic art. Or was. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I must return to the Portland Trail\nBlazers of my youth and the last NBA player to ever wear white (or\nblack) canvas Chuck Taylors in an NBA Championship series, Herm\nGilliam, who was, naturally, a Portland Trail Blazer, who helped them\nimprobably win the franchise’s only NBA title in 1977 by playing the\ngame of his life in Game Two of the Western Conference Finals. He\nrained jumpers in against the sun-soaked LA Lakers and will never be\nforgotten in certain tiny quarters of Oregon history as long as I’m\nalive and remembering the immortal radio announcer Bill Schonley’s\ncalls describing Gilliam’s shake and bake, Red Hot and Rollin’ moves.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On\nSunday, June 5, 1977 at approximately 2:02 pm, the Portland Trail\nBlazers defeated the Philadelphia 76ers 109-107 in Portland\u2019s\nMemorial Coliseum to wrap up the franchise\u2019s first (and still only)\nNBA title. I was a seventh grader. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seventh\ngrade marked a turning point in my life, the time when I began to\ncultivate a reclusive existence, a practice that has endured, in fact\ndeepened in my adulthood. What it all meant back in 1976-77 is that I\nexperienced every Blazer game, either on the radio or television,\nabsent other humans. I lived with my older sister and mother but they\nwere completely uninterested in professional basketball, as was my\nfather, who lived less than a mile away. It was just me and Tex, our\nfat beagle, together in the garage, listening to Schonely\u2019s calls\non a dinky AM radio, or if a game was broadcast on television, which\nwas rare in those days, watching it in the den. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\npreferred the garage because on the vacant half of the two-car\nstructure, I had constructed a Nerf basketball court, a 20-foot full\ncourt that replicated in precise detail, to scale, the hardwood floor\nof the Memorial Coliseum. And I mean right down to the Blazer logo.\nMasking tape marked the court\u2019s boundaries, keys and free throw\nlines. Briefly, I considered using two discarded windowpanes for\nglass backboards, but attaching them securely to the wall proved\nproblematic, potentially injurious, so I settled instead for plywood\nlifted from a nearby construction site. Two reshaped coat hangars\nserved as rims and I persuaded my mother to buy apples packaged in\nplastic netting because the purchase provided the perfect material to\nfashion into nets that actually hung on the rim when a long range\nshot drilled through it. My mother also bought me Nerf balls by the\ndozen because Tex demonstrated a savage dislike for them if one\nrolled his way. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On my\ncourt, listening to the radio, I reenacted the games in real time to\nthe best of my ability, also supplementing Schonely\u2019s play-by-play\nwith my color commentary. In the course of four quarters, I must have\nsprinted up and back the court 500 times and strung together a\n10,000-word running monologue. I would address Schonely by his first\nname Bill<\/em> and often repeat some of his magic phrases: climb\nthe golden ladder, bingo, bango, bongo, lickety brindle up the\nmiddle, my o my, you\u2019ve got to make your free throws, rip city!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Before\neach Blazer game, I laced up my low-cut white Pumas adorned with a\nblack swirling logo. These were the same sleek leather sneakers I\nwore as the starting point guard for my basketball team. I distinctly\nremember the Pumas because they marked the first time I had not worn\nChuck Taylor Converse All Stars while playing organized basketball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I\nplayed, I mimicked the Blazers\u2019 trademark shots: Hollins\u2019 ugly,\nlefty, sidearm jumpers, Lucas\u2019 stutter-step, flat-trajectory,\noutside shots, Twardzik\u2019s pinball, contorted drives down the lane,\nSteele\u2019s throwback set shots, and the playground spin moves of\nGilliam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it\nwas Walton\u2019s shots, the jump hooks, bank shots and dunks that I\nliked mimicking most of all. In particular, I remember simulating one\nof his playoff dunks, the now legendary jam in the face of Los\nAngeles Laker center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the fourth quarter of\nGame Three of the Western Conference Finals that quite obviously\nranks as the greatest basket in franchise history. I can hear\nSchonely\u2019s voice as if he made the call yesterday. Something about\nhis urgent, heightening narration of the play must have unhinged me\nin some fashion since this image of Walton dunking over his arch\nrival, Portland over Los Angeles, Oregon over California, Tom McCall\nover Ronald Reagan\u2014with the game on the line\u2014has remained\nconcrete and vivid in my mind ever since: Lucas bats the ball\naway, keeps it alive, over for Walton! Lucas with the steal!<\/em>\nWALTON, OVER JABBAR!<\/em> OH BABY, HE\u2019S FOULED!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n As I\nreturn to those long sweaty make-believe hours in the garage, I\nwonder what my mother must have thought of me, for surely she heard\nthe running, the play-by-play commentary, the clapping, the yelling,\nthe squeak of sneakers on concrete, the low noise of the cheering\nhome crowd after a spectacular play when I ran over to the radio and\nturned up the volume. Not once did my mother ever interrupt me. No\none ever did. Perhaps my mother sensed that the Blazers were my best\nfriends and we were playing hard and well together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nBlazers won it all that Sunday afternoon and the media quickly spread\nthe news that our heroes would be honored the following day, and just\nas quickly, people devised hooky plans to attend. In what was then\nand still remains the largest public gathering in Oregon history, an\nestimated 250,000 fans swarmed downtown streets and rooftops to\ncelebrate the championship by watching a parade of players, coaches,\ntheir wives or girlfriends and kids that began at Union Station and\nculminated with a rally at Terry Shrunk Plaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I\ndid not join the throng that day. That Monday happened to be one of\nthe last days of school and for some reason, strictly my own,\ncertainly not my mother\u2019s, I chose not<\/em> to ride a Tri-Met bus\nwith some friends to witness the spectacle. As I recall, back at\nGardiner Junior High, only two out of my regular six teachers and\nhalf the students showed up. I remember sitting in half-empty rooms\nfilling out worksheets and viewing filmstrips, doubtless fantasizing\nabout the downtown celebration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We did\nnot watch the parade on television at Gardiner, and I\u2019m unsure if\nit was even broadcast. That evening, I viewed a few clips of the\nparade and rally on the local news and that was it. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bank shots! What is there about a deep shot that kisses the glass so perfectly that it ricochets through the rim and hangs the net in a peculiar sideways fashion? It’s a work of athletic art. Or was. I must return to the Portland Trail Blazers of my youth and the last NBA player to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,942],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-city","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5861"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5863,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5861\/revisions\/5863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}