Rude was entertaining the idea that, if Joel Embiid pushed him hard enough, Marc Gasol would fall over. Because Marc Gasol is built like—and it has nothing to do with his personality—one of those punching bag clowns, no matter how hard you hit it, it’s designed to always come speed-wobbling back up, smiling.
Rude was the foul called on the Raptors new undrafted pocket knife (and corkscrew, and tiny pair of scissors, and bottle opener, plus any other Swiss Army tool you might need out there), Terence Davis, after he raised his arms to block Josh Richardson a clean two feet away and Richardson, only from landing on one leg and already tipping backward, spills to the ground like a kid will, feet up by his face and butt to the rafters.
Rude was also what Gasol did to Embiid in that game: took his scope, took his shot, took his teeth. Whatever fire Embiid started out with, Gasol smothered it. What was rude was how effortless, how of course, Gasol was working, but how much Embiid brings out in him more intuitive talents. The kind of talent that makes the work seem second nature, near flippant. Whenever Embiid got the idea he could try, there was Gasol to gently, firmly, say “No”. I picture it softer than a whisper, right in Embiid’s head. That for games Gasol has guarded him, Gasol becomes his conscience. Rude like you can no longer tell where the line between your subconscious and someone else’s starts and ends. Rude like living rent free in somebody else’s head.
Rude was the ball, living free, and rejecting the basket at every attempted free throw Richardson took. None of which missed outright, all of which rattled around, bumped the backboard, skittered at the rim before flopping right the fuck out. Sort of the same way Richardson did with his body at the sideline to start the whole thing. Rude was the crowd screaming like it was first blood, spinning the game—depending how nostalgic or optimistic you want to be—back six months or forward five, into playoff feeling territory.
Most rude of all though was the way Pascal Siakam sent the Sixers packing without sticking around to say goodbye.
As a sequence, it was a mess. Philly was scrambling to close a 3-point gap with ten seconds to go, and I really do mean to imply the team because everyone was hacking at it. Siakam had Richardson trapped in the corner, Fred VanVleet was wrestling Al Horford, Embiid struggled mightily against his immovable force, Marc Gasol, under the net, so when Tobias Harris lets his corner-key shot go, flung over Norman Powell who if given half a second more would have squared up and forced a pass, the ball is short, knocking against the front of the rim to ricochet merrily back out, fast. Powell is almost there but Ben Simmons stayed out and cuts wide across the floor, he and Norm both have their arms stretched like swimmers reaching for the wall in a race, but the ball isn’t bouncing anymore, is low, and Simmons spins to scoop it, bumping Powell as he goes so Norm is pitched forward, nearly loses his feet. Simmons tries the shot. It’s the kind of shot that Ben Simmons would never make, but might have made here, given how little he had a chance to think about it. He shoots it from the air, mid-way through a spiral his body is still moving through, and it is probably one of the most beautiful passes Marc Gasol has ever caught. Because it lands right in his hands, he only had to pop up a little under the netting to grab it, and with his arms still skyward he two-hand flings it out, over every Sixers’ gaping face, to Siakam, already starting to run.
To Tobias Harris’ credit, he gives chase. But it is the kind of theatrical run one would do down a train platform to wave goodbye. He knows how much runway he has, knows he will never catch up to the greater force set in motion, but he gamely, grimly, is present for heartbreak.
Siakam on the other hand has already hit the bucolic range of beyond the centre line with only space, no opposing forces, out in front of him. OG Anunoby is there for him to pass like a mile marker, somebody waiting at a crossing gate, as time became the tracks Siakam had to stay between. And he did, he glided on them, skimming, his body synced to half-seconds intuitive as breathing. He hits the top of the key and takes a step up, into air, by 0.6 seconds left on the clock he’s hanging, body jackknifing slightly from the force of his flight, 0.3 and the ball has been delivered, two-handed, to the basket, the skein of the net meeting it like a shudder.
The ball is lonesome for Siakam. Can’t wait for him to make a landing before it finds him. Propels down and thuds into his sternum, the thump of it hard as a lovesick heartbeat. Siakam lands like he’s about to be knighted, about to be blessed, rises like Christ the Redeemer at the summit of Corcovado, anointed by a crowd losing its shit.
The sequence, ten seconds, and equally impressive fast or slow: rude. The ball’s seeming magnetized pull away from the Raptors net, Raptors end, any attempt by the Sixers the stave off embarrassment: rude. Pascal Siakam, synched with time, transported to the mountaintop, dunk for an avalanche: rude.
Rude done wrong, like your run-of-the-mill, everyday rude, is one of the most reliable ways to get under my skin. It ranges, of course, from things that could just be oversight—not introducing someone in a run-in because you straight up forgot that person’s name, not holding a door because you didn’t think anyone was behind you—to outright intentional. What bothers me about rude is less a decorum thing than a lack of empathy, lack of awareness. Not so much as being intentionally cruel, because then, however fucked up, you have still thought of someone, but instead actions that make it apparent you haven’t given a stray thought to anyone else beyond the stunted measure of just yourself. Treating people worse than incoming weather, because at least then you have cast yourself ahead and packed an umbrella, worn an extra layer. Awareness of others doesn’t mean you fix your axis on them, only that you recognize how much easier, expansive, occasionally terrifying and just generally nicer it can be to accept the magnetization of others, even those that do not represent a thing to you.
But there is room for rude. Because when rude hits right it can be like the sound Siakam’s ball made meeting the net, the physical hit of it against his chest. A steadying shove or borrowed pulse when your own gets wonky.
Rude as reclamation of space, last resort or celebration. Sitting down on the train to the chagrin of a neighbour, and then exhaling into the space as he looks over, seems startled by, the idea that your body is not asking but taking. Smacking some part of the car that has just tried to make a left hand turn into you. Removing the courtesy of silence and confronting someone out in the open. Shooting fireworks off after dark from a roof, in a city lot, right out in the street, the pleasure in noise, in light, in small shocks of awe.
Extending your arms out to the side, raising them up, in the face of what would demand you to stay down.