Last night, I went to Houndstooth Saloon, a bar that boasts “Southern Hospitality on the North Side.” It was country night. As it was still early in the night and I wasn’t yet drunk enough to enjoy “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy,” even ironically, I had most of my attention focused on the NBA basketball on the few TVs in the bar not devoted to CMT.

It was at that point I witnessed Chris Anderson’s insane block of Rudy Fernandez, and the block was great enough. What sealed it was Anderson’s reaction:

During the broadcast, that was replayed in slow motion at least four or five times. I LOL’d and LOL’d and LOL’d. Then “Whiskey For My Men, Beer For My Horses” came on, and I needed another beer.

I made the mostly glorious mistake — the not-so-glorious part was eating two microwavable breakfast burritos immediately before — of staying up until 5 a.m. on Saturday night to watch the men’s Olympic basketball team win gold over Spain, 118-107. (What’s that? You didn’t know? Sorry, NBC actually ran this game within 72 hours of it being live, so you have no excuses.)

Yes, it was completely worth the brutal zombie-like state I endured through all day Sunday.

And not just because America won either; it was a tremendous opportunity to watch a group of the NBA’s finest athletes play together and actually care about something. That this win mattered so much to us, the Americans, was because, well, it mattered so much to them.

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