Basketball Is a Lot Like Life, Especially at the End

By Cliff Potts

I don’t watch much basketball, but I know enough to notice something odd about it.

For most of the game, it’s repetitive. One team scores, the other team scores. They run back and forth, up and down the court, doing essentially the same thing again and again. If you checked in halfway through, you’d be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss was about.

And yet, people stay glued to the screen.

The Middle of the Game Looks the Same

That’s because most of the game doesn’t matter all that much — at least not in isolation. A basket in the first quarter counts, sure, but it rarely feels decisive. There’s always time to make it up. There’s always another possession coming.

So the game keeps moving. Score. Respond. Score. Respond. Over and over.

If you think about it, that looks a lot like everyday life.

You get up. You do the work. You handle the problem. You solve one thing, and another thing replaces it. Some days you feel ahead. Some days you feel behind. Most days feel like the same day wearing a different shirt.

Why Nobody Leaves Early

But nobody leaves early, because everyone knows what’s coming.

Toward the end of the game, everything changes. Suddenly, every possession matters. A missed shot isn’t just a missed shot anymore — it’s the missed shot. Time becomes precious. Decisions get scrutinized. Small mistakes turn into big regrets.

The crowd gets louder, the coaches get tighter, and the players look more human.

That’s when the game actually reveals itself.

Life Has a Clock Too

Life works the same way, whether we like it or not.

For a long time, we live in the middle of the game. There’s time. There’s margin. There’s always another season, another year, another chance to fix things later.

So we pace ourselves. We coast a little. We assume we’ll get around to what matters.

Then one day, the clock becomes visible.

The Last Minutes Count More Than We Admit

Near the end of life, things get clearer — sometimes uncomfortably so. What mattered turns out to be simpler than we thought. What didn’t matter turns out to have taken up an awful lot of time.

Like the end of a basketball game, it’s not about how flashy you were early on. It’s about how you played when the clock was running out.

Who you showed up for.
What you said when it counted.
What you didn’t put off anymore.

This Isn’t a Sports Column

I’m not saying basketball teaches us how to live. I’m just saying it accidentally tells the truth.

Most of the game feels interchangeable. The end doesn’t.

And maybe that’s worth remembering while we’re still running back and forth, trading points, assuming there’s plenty of time left on the clock.

Because eventually, the buzzer comes. And when it does, no one talks about the middle of the game nearly as much as they talk about how it ended.

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