Lonzo Ball does not relive the play in his head like some traumatic sequence. He is not haunted by Dillon Brooks taking a handoff from a teammate, dribbling frantically around a screen and launching a three-point shot with Ball’s hand in his face during the final second of UCLA’s Pac-12 Conference opener against Oregon in late December.
It doesn’t matter that the ball went in the basket, giving the Bruins their first defeat of the season and Ball his first setback since the end of his junior year in high school. That’s not the ending Ball cares about during what’s expected to be his only college season.