Kieran Shannon: Flashback to a childhood enjoying sport’s special twilight zone

With all the fascinating match-ups and games there’ll be in this NBA post-season, we’ll be trying out all kind of ways, new and old, to follow the action, and as often as possible without knowing the score

Reigning NBA finals MVP Kawhi Leonard. (Photo by Kyle Terada-Pool/Getty Images)

It’s not just athletes that need to have some strategy when it comes to sleep and their sport. So do the rest of us who follow it.

Taking power naps, or answering early-morning alarm calls that requires the mental discipline of Rocky being up cracking eggs at an ungodly hour or him beating Apollo Creed and the count when the easiest thing would be to just slump back down; if we want to enjoy our sport, or at least our live sport, sometimes we’ve to rise from that canvas, and like Ali, forcibly tell ourselves that we don’t belong down there.