An Alex Caruso flaps his wings ...

The impact of a single result on narratives.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Medusa; Carlos Schwabe; 1895

After that wild Kings’ win over the Warriors to clinch a 4-0 record in the group stage of the NBA Cup, all sorts of Golden State takes were brewing, many of them thoughtful, accurate and earned. But it did have me thinking about an age-old trope: a single event, play or game can have outsized impacts on the discourse around a player or team.

In other words, the Warriors were really close to winning that game, in which case the next-day conversations in the media (social and otherwise) about their destiny would have been less … powerful, if they existed at all.

This applies to what I suspect will be in the air on Friday: discourse around the Bulls’ stunning win over the Bucks in Chicago on Thursday. A game the Bulls were a single difficult Alex Caruso shot away from losing in regulation after being up seven with 86 seconds left.

Unless you are a Bucks fan, I cannot recommend enough that you watch the NBA’s reel from the end of this game. “CRAZY OVERTIME ENDING” does not even do it justice.

The narrative threads spilling out from this result are like spaghetti on a toddler’s placesetting: they are going every which direction.

To wit:

• Finding criticism of nearly any NBA head coach is not difficult. Avoiding conversations about Adrian Griffin’s rookie season struggles is what is actually difficult. His decision not to foul up three on that final possession in regulation is a rage-inducer for those in the anti-Griff set. He remains a major question mark in the Bucks’ title opportunity — he’s just an unknown, and he hasn’t had much opportunity to cover himself in glory early this season.

• The Bulls didn’t have Zach LaVine or DeMar DeRozan. And they played with pep, with zip, with heart. LaVine is the current persona non grata in most Bulls circles, it would seem, so his absence is more notable than that of DeRozan. That the Bulls played like this and beat that team without him is enough fuel to power the NBA trade machines all the way up to February.

• Patrick Williams got stuffed near the end of regulation. If Caruso’s shot doesn’t fall, that’s the lasting image of Williams from this game: getting stuffed on a critical attempt at the rim by the vastly superior Giannis Antetokounmpo. A reinforcement of the belief that Williams is both a huge disappointment as a lottery pick and a lost cause for Chicago’s basketball dreams. Instead, Caruso hits the shot, and there is now a second lasting image of Williams in this game: his thunderous dagger dunk in overtime, where he exploded in joy and excitement. It probably doesn’t completely turn around the discourse around himself, but it puts off the worst of it for another week or month.

• Bulls doomerism would have hit a modern peak if Chicago loses in regulation after blowing that lead. Instead, with one shot then a good overtime finish, it just … dissipates for now? Like a storm that fails to come together before it hits the shore?

Meanwhile, the Warriors beat the Clippers to perhaps ease their discourse, a night after the Clippers stomped the Kings in a good James Harden game to ease their discourse, a night after the Kings edged the Warriors to avoid conversations about never being able to beat the Warriors since that Game 7 in Sacramento last May.

The tentacles of discourse, they are everywhere.