One Day, 11 NBA Highlight Videos: The Reel Talk Guide To NBA.Com's Weird Aesthetic

The NCAA tournament is over. Baseball has dawned on this Earth. The NBA Playoffs are still a Euro-step and a jump away. We are pretty sure we know who's going to be playing in those playoffs, and the teams that could sneak in or fall out are mostly regarded as curiosities.

In short, we are dead in the water in strange period that comes upon us every year: the time when minor shuffles in the standings seem so drab, and the oncoming future—the glory and honor of the NBA Playoffs, the greatest gauntlet of unceasing excellence in THE HISTORY OF SPORT, a time of power and truth—seems so alluring.

But until the sun rises on that day and the waves of Naismith's golden warmth fill our barren hearts, we have…well, we have the official Daily NBA Highlights from Sunday, April 3. These are the little highlight videos that play on NBA.com's box score pages—the sort of ubiquitous and ignorable basketball videojunk that fills the world around us. These videos are, crucially, not embeddable. That said, I'm sure that my description of the videos, and the strange narrative and filmmaking methods they employ, will prove just as illustrative. (Hyperlinks are provided if you'd like to check my work.)

The day began at Brooklyn's Rusty Peace and Pleasure Dome. Post-Church games in New York City have acquired a reputation for hungover swappiness, and a late-year contest between two teams with nothing to play for and large swaths of both their rosters confined to the bench wasn't likely to provide any extra incentive for the pursuit of glory. In deference to the home-court advantage, the mix begins with a decisive Anti-New Orleans tone: Dante Cunningham commits a terrible five second violation and then gets SAVAGELY blocked by Rondae Hollis-Jefferson. We are denied confirmation of one more slip up, which would make this, officially, an anti-Dante Cunningham mix. The NBA needs to protect its players from themselves, I suppose.

But, in a series of unseen and, undiscussed moments, this early lead evaporates. Tim Frazier, human manifestation of Replacement Level NBA Point Guard, is this highlight's Chosen Man in the second half. We see him dismantling the Nets' lethargic defense and devouring what remains of their pride, hungrily and without shame.

Of course, the mix lies: The Nets were not beaten by Tim Frazier. They were beaten by themselves, as we all are, sooner or later. But congratulations to Tim Frazier and his skinny legs on a good performance in a real NBA game.

Feverish Failed Comebacks are not the worst kind of basketball game. But as far as official NBA highlight mixes go, failed comebacks are always disappointing. They always begin with the good team, the winner, scoring a bunch of points in the first half. You say: "Hey, they look pretty good!" And then, when the second half starts, the winner's glorious inadequacies are glossed over, their moment of embarrassing subjugation to their once-inferior opponent's will forgotten. There follows two or three clips of the other team making up ground. Here, we are shown two stout plays from Kemba Walker and one step-back jumper by Jeremy Lin. That's all that is left to represent a moment that was once so full of hope, a moment free of the binary cage of win and loss.

If the mix spent a little more time with the Charlotte comeback, if it really let the audience UNDERSTAND what happened and see and feel the struggle and the pain of leaving it on the table, it could be something. But it doesn't, and it isn't. Bad highlight mix.

Right before the half, the announcer lets out a sing-songy "Weest-brook." You can feel him getting more and more restless in his booth, this being his 2,200th game of the season so far. The Playoffs loom for him as well.

Not just not-listless but feisty, for maybe the first time all year, are the Houston Rockets, belatedly angling for a playoff spot. Cint Capella gets unbelievable sky on a pick and roll dunk—his body, on the attack, looks like a flying parentheses. Harden's scoring exploits are so numerous as to comprise a small heap. K.J. McDaniels drives from the corner and scores a circus layup that describes an illogically high arc. The Rockets, out of context, put on quite a show for NBA.com's editors.

A game this close features a dearth of Thunder highlights. Watching them lose to an inferior team in short format makes them seem listless and sloppy. It is probably unfair in the abstract, poor evidence to preset to a court of law, but it also FEELS correct. The audience has to decide if this is a feature or a bug on their own.

This game was apparently quite bad and can be redeemed only after having been broken apart, reduced, and reshuffled for an internet audience. I come to you on this day to say: it does, after having been given that treatment!

That treatment features Karl-A, the Townsman and lately vanquisher of the invincible Warriors, bringing some really beautiful, Durant-adjacent grace to the act of rolling to the rim, Andrew Wiggins gets a nice steal in. It features The Announcer, who I have come to regard as a friend in the course of this exercise, infusing pure and beautiful surprise, using nothing but his voice and his innate professionalism, into the occasion of KAT hauling in 21 rebounds on the night.

In addition to showcasing the young Timberwolves' good highlights, the package also manages to communicate a two very tangible narrative truths about the game: Dallas won and Wes Matthews made a lot of three-pointers. This is not just a good highlight, but great filmmaking—a terrible game, made both palatable and sensible with the power of video editing.

Here is the official NBA Matchup of generalized neurosis, and a post-church start at that. There is a profound listlessness. Blake is back, but eh. Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan run a pick and roll, the defense hedges alllll the way into the paint to seal off a dunk, leaving CP3 with the ball in middle range. An enormously long time passes for a basketball play. No one is looking to step out onto Chris. This sensation of waiting for something to happen, for someone to rotate or for Chris to shoot, gives the viewer a very aggressive dose of modernist basketbal, with its rationality and its points-per-possession tactics. The machine in our ghosts, leaping out of the screen, massaging our noses. It's extremely creepy, is what it is.

The Announcer is too chipper for his task, this time.

The Announcer is confused. "Xavier Munford?" The audience is also confused by this slight highlight mix with sub-optimal highlights and no particular narrative drive. Features a nice cricket pass by Elfrid Peyton, but strictly non-essential.

The Announcer is gone. He has been replaced by Cowboy Announcer, who works the night shift on Sundays. His voice is rough like thunder, but it gives the viewer a shot of energy. The Announcer was our pal, passing us a beer, talking about The Game. Cowboy Announcer kicked your fucking door in, pushed you out of your chair, logged on to NBA.com, found the day's relative highlights, and is TELLING YOU ABOUT THEM.

He is really freaked out by the puppeteer who performs at halftime. Cowboy Announcer is used to more horse-based entertainments. This is all unsettling to him.

Aside from our new companion, this condensation of a blowout is THOROUGHLY non-essential. An okay team blowing out a bad team? Very little fertile ground for riveting moments. I guess Tyson Chandler heaving himself at the rim for several dunks is admirable, but his fading explosiveness is a reminder of the ravages of time. Just yesterday he was Dirk's brother on the Modernist Flagship that was the 2011 Dallas Mavericks, the first team to casually annihilate dinosaur tactics on the path to trophy glory. Now he labors in dishonor for a sad Suns team.

Oh that we could be in 2011 forever! Rick Santorum could run for president forever.

Cowboy Announcer is not subtle. But his skills with meat-and-potatoes emotional storytelling do bring a lot to the table. First, he establishes geographic locations for our teams, raising the stakes with nothing but a brief verbal gesture towards places on a map. We are truly in the presence of a master, we think, when all of a sudden you hear him say "Miles Plumlee" with what can only be described as a Gurgling Throat Accent.

His gentle, enthusiastic gurgling remind you of the drifter-trucker grandpa you never had, the one who always brought a pack of circus peanuts for christmas. Cowboy Announcer brings a sense of urgency to this brief re-contextualizing of a close game. When Jimmy Butler finally ends it, you hear the texture of his disappointment for the Bucks and a profound understanding that it is the way of nature, both acceptable and necessary, even if tinged with disappointment. Wonderful stuff.

The way this package is constructed, through editing and the narrative coaxing of Cowboy Announcer, back here for another ride, convinces you that the game happened like this—the Pacers were winning and Paul George was playing well. He hurt his ankle, though, and the Knicks went on a run. But, soon, Paul George was back, and he hit a big three to tie the game. Then, Arron Afflalo hit ANOTHER big shot, but it turns out that he was out of bounds ("OHH IT'S A FALLAWAY THREE! Oh, no. It isn't." Cowboy Announcer sets them up and KNOCKS THEM DOWN.) Then, Kurt Rambis, famously horny online, is super disappointed when a ref explains the situation to him:

Now, I don't know if that's true. I didn't watch this game, or read a game story, or do much to interact with this game at all. At the very least, this is a gross oversimplification of events that transpired in the game. But this highlight recap really made me feel like I pretty much understood what was happening.

I don't know if "A deeply convincing oversimplification" is a valuable thing in the grand scheme of the cosmos. But it gave me a feeling of knowledge and involvement, and, for better or worse, that was its goal.

Lovingly rendered and exalted Warriors pornography, yet again. I can attest that it was even more obscene and luxurious in person; predictable, too, and only briefly livened up by a Lillard/Curry three-point duel in the third quarter. The NBA is a propaganda machine for its most powerful constituents. The moral pendulum will swing back and the NBA will be ruled by dull power play once again, mark my words. It is the way of the universe.

Kobe scores 34 in noble loss to Celtics. Glory and power, the history of these two franchises, winning, exaltation, moral strength, power. History is a broth made from the bones of the defeated. The result is a thoroughly unremarkable highlight mix, despite the Cowboy Announcer giving his all, as ever.

THANK YOU FOR JOINING ME THIS WEEK! We will be back NEXT WEEK with more piercing insights into YOUR heart!!!!