‘Just a Game?’ (Alissa Hollimon - NBAE/Getty Images)

Basketball is just a game. This is all just entertainment. No lives are at risk and whether or not the shot hits its intended target doesn’t really matter.

Or does it?

If you fight for the red, white and blue and need something from back home to hold onto, something as trivial as a basketball cast toward an iron hoop, is, believe or not, another reason to hang onto that which we hold so true.

One of those intangibles that lift a man off his knees, brightens the face of an amputee, lends soldiers huddled around a radio jubilee, and lets men at war agree to disagree.

I am no politico, and I fight no war, but I understand what its like to feel alone, to be far away from home and to desire any semblance of what it was like back on familiar loam.

Yes this is just a game. Yes it’s entertaining. But no, O no! I was certainly wrong. Lives are at risk… especially the lives of those who die so we can live… survive, thrive, relive and forgive… our favorite team. Go Jazz! Indeed.