In 2006, at the edge of the northernmost settlement in Quebec, Canada, the diminutive Lydia Angyiou went toe-to-toe with a polar bear. This was, of course, not her idea per se. The small town of Ivujivik is a sub-arctic community, existing just 185 miles outside of the Arctic Circle, and r oughly 1000 miles from the North Pole. The population experiences a grand total of 20 days a year without ice. Certainly, there’s a higher probability of encountering a polar bear there than in most places on Earth. Still, such encounters in a populated area are exceedingly rare, which is why Lydia Angyiou’s blood ran cold the moment she spotted it. On a walk with her sons, she heard shouting from a group of children playing street hockey that no longer resembled the eager keening of play, and turned to see that 700 pounds of fur and muscle had zeroed in on her 7-year-old and was rapidly approaching. With only seconds to think, Angyiou charged the bear, hoping to delay it and create distance for her sons as she shouted to them to run away. Angyiou stood five feet tall and weighed ninety pounds, dripping wet. She slammed her tiny frame into the polar bear, leading with her fist, and began to punch and kick it with all her might. Finally, the stunned behemoth responded, swatting her in the face with such force that she tumbled onto her back. Almost immediately, the bear was on her, but Angyiou resumed kicking the creature at every opening in a bicycling motion. She grabbed onto the animal’s body and clung to it, and the perplexed ursid swatted at her again until finally landing a blow, sprawling her across the snow and ice once more. Suddenly, a shot rang out. Then another. And another. Until finally the equally majestic and terrifying bruin slumped to the ground. Angyiou had escaped with only minor wounds to her face, and a black eye. No one could explain it. It was possible, they reasoned, that the bear had been disoriented rather than hungry, perhaps even ill. Perhaps the diminutive Angyiou had summoned a legendary instance of hysterical strength, allowing her to grapple with the eight-foot-tall polar colossus. Perhaps all the years as an uncontested apex predator had left it ill-prepared for such an unexpected confrontation. The only thing that was certain was that Angyiou had become the only currently living human to engage in hand-to-hand combat with a polar bear and survive. Belief is a powerful thing. Perhaps the most powerful. My father certainly spent most of my youth asserting that this was the case, positing that all of the greatest and the most terrible things that humanity had achieved had only been possible through the belief that it could be achieved in the first place. Lately, I find myself inclined to agree with him. Closing in on four decades, I’ve seen things that I simply can’t explain. Political situations that are confounding. Relationships that don’t make sense. Miraculous recoveries that baffle the medical establishment. Teams that somehow play beyond the sum of their parts. Over the past several seasons, I’ve found myself bereft of that belief; the belief that the Spurs can play beyond the limitations of their roster to the consternation of the opposition. It was true once. It was true for a long time, when the shadows cast by the banners in the rafters were instead cast by players on the court. But the truth was, those rosters weren’t quite that limited. It was easy to forget in the way that a young boy fishing with a stick finds that he somehow fails to catch anywhere near as many fish in the absence of his father and that magical tackle box. For years, I watched the Spurs frustrated by their failure to put it all together, refusing, on some level, to acknowledge that there wasn’t that much to put together in the first place. Even the arrival of a French wunderkind wasn’t enough to cover the flaws in the roster. Little by little, I lost my belief, not realizing that so too had the Spurs. Gone were the mainstays and last links to a bygone dynasty. It wasn’t just that these players had to learn to play and improve in order to win. They had to believe that they could. They had to know in that way that only the truly devoted and the ardent-hearted are certain of the ineffable. Watching them, you could see that they didn’t. Consistency from quarter to quarter was difficult and confidence-sapping. Offensive and defensive attention waxed and waned, and reeked of anxiety. Closing out games felt all but impossible; the gap in knowledge matched by the gap in certainty. But then, something started to happen. Those players all got older. The front office took an uncharacteristically large swing in the trade market and shored up weaknesses in free-agency. And the restlessness that had been growing, the hunger that can only be fed one way, spurred the roster to push themselves in the off-season in a manner not seen in some time. And suddenly, the Spurs started winning. And they kept winning, injuries be damned. And then their fearless leader went down with an injury, and all bets were off. We’d all seen this movie before. We knew how it would end. There was faint hope that the Spurs could tread water around .500 for the duration of Wembanyama’s injury, but even that felt audacious in the hotly contested Western Conference. And then, when it was least expected, the Spurs showed us all something. To be sure, the first couple of games without the franchise player were clunky, but the confidence began to grow. Players began to assert themselves. The next man up began stepping up once again, each player taking it in their turn, and that’s when I saw it — the glint in the eye. The unchanging physical demeanors. The look. I saw it when the Spurs refused to cower against the mighty Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets. I saw it again when they quietly iced a Grizzlies team that had given their thinned front-court hell previously. And I had seen it all night against a feisty Orlando Magic team that took pride in making every Spurs possession an exercise in attrition. On the second night of a back-to-back, the Spurs didn’t care what roadblocks the Magic threw at them. Slowly, methodically, they built their lead in the first half. And then, with the lull at the half potentially affecting their already tired legs, they began to lose ground. Then came the turnovers, and the too-early jump shooting, and the defensive miscues. It felt like a movie I’d seen a million times before. Those leaden legs have doomed them, I thought. But it was okay. Most of us had this one down as a schedule loss. Only the best teams found ways to win games like this, and these Spurs were certainly not those Spurs. I suppose somebody should have told them that. Suddenly, the Spurs made a run a few minutes into the 4th quarter, just as the gap began to close, with the impetuously graceful Dylan Harper leading the way. The Spurs looked tired. What they didn’t look was defeated. Again, the Magic began to close the gap, clawing their way back within six points. The Spurs refused to lose composure. And once again Harper started a run, with one-time clutch player of the year De’Aaron Fox pitching in for good measure. And just as suddenly, they both had messy turnovers. The Magic took advantage of the lapses. None of the Spurs could hit a shot. Jeremy Sochan missed a pair of free throws. Harrison Barnes chose the worst moment to foul Franz Wagner, and he made all three of his. The score was tied. And yet, not a single Spurs player looked demoralized. The focus was taut and fully on the game, and Fox, the star the Spurs had swung for, made a pair of free throws of his own. There were 1.4 seconds left. And suddenly, Franz Wagner, the only player I didn’t want to have the ball, had gained possession just underneath the rim! Was this it then? Was this how the Spurs were going to rip my beating heart out? So much for composure. And then, out of nowhere, a seven-foot blur, right arm outstretched, made fingertip contact with the agonizingly rotating sphere. It was over. The game was over, ended on a walk-off block from a player other than Victor Wembanyama. Somehow, Luke Kornet had materialized from the ether and altered the fabric of the game itself. It was a movement born of certainty, of conviction, of utter belief. There were so many things that could have gone wrong. Kornet could have fouled him. Wagner could have anticipated it and thrown to Kornet’s open shooter. Kornet could have timed it badly enough to result in goal-tending. Kornet could have injured himself. Looking at it in replay, I don’t know how he thought he’d make it there in time. There was no hesitation. No confusion. No instance of luckily being at the right place at the right time. “‘My boy, my boy, my boy is going to be killed, nothing I can do.” were the reported thoughts of Lydia Angyiou once she recognized the danger. She charged anyway. She believed she could do something, even if she wasn’t certain what it was. Maybe, recognizing the danger, Kornet had thought something similar. Perhaps he, too, experienced a bout of hysterical strength. Whatever the case may be, Luke Kornet believed, and the Spurs are 15-6. Takeaways I honestly cannot gush enough about rookie Dylan Harper. His return and presence completely reshape San Antonio’s rotations for the better, especially the bench. It feels like it’s been a long, long time since the Spurs had a young player with the ability to go downhill the way that Harper does. Already he feels like he’s as effective a penetrator as De’Aaron Fox is, and that’s really saying something. Additionally, he has a real talent for breaking the Spurs offense out of cold spells. It’s rare that any rookie has such a sense of the moment, and is also able to seize it. If he can keep this up there’s a very real chance the Spurs will add another Rookie of the Year trophy to their list of front office conquests. And even if Harper comes up short, I suspect it won’t be by much. He’s really that good. Not just for a rookie. Period. There is a developing trend with Harrison Barnes and Julian Champaginie, and it revolves around their scoring. With Victor out, the Spurs are very dependent on their performances on the offensive end. So far, if both players break double digits in scoring, the Spurs are able to win/keep it close. If not, San Antonio struggles to keep pace, which is especially important as their defense slowly descends back to middling without their premier rim defender. Both players were able to combine for 25 points last night, and that almost certainly made the difference. I think it’s time for some love for Keldon Johnson. He appears to have finally fully settled into his role as 6th man, and he should certainly be in some league-wide award conversations for what he’s doing right now, as he’s currently sporting the best True Shooting Percentage, Effective Field Goal Percentage, and Player Efficiency Rating of his career. He’s never been more efficient, and in tandem with Harper, he not only keeps the bench afloat, but has helped turn it into a resounding strength for the Spurs. In fact, there’s an argument to be made that Harper has drawn even more out of Keldon, with his sharp drives creating even more space for Keldon’s bulldozing forays to the rim, and his passes hitting him perfectly in stride when on the move. It’s been a while since San Antonio’s bench was this fun to watch. Playing You Out – The Theme Song of the Evening: Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey ...read more read less