Sometimes there is a calm before the storm. A moment of clarity before chaos ensues. An instant where anticipation creeps in and you have to grab your emotions by the collar before they sprint off without you.
It’s like Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight, right before the drums crash down. You feel it coming. You anticipate your air drum solo. The note hangs in the room. You are ready, but you wait. There is beauty in the pause. Because on one side lives restraint, and on the other lives release.
Well, the hurt doesn’t show, but the pain still grows
It’s no stranger to you and me…
Dillon Brooks knows that space well. You see it before every game. The vacant stare. Eyes locked somewhere past the hardwood, past the noise, past the stakes. It looks like intimidation, but it is not. It is meditation. It is breath control. It is taking in the sights and the sounds, the crowd humming, the moment stretching. Calm first, chaos later. Control now, eruption soon. The drum solo is coming. He is preparing himself to meet it head-on.
It was an unbelievably impressive effort by Dillon on Thursday night against the Detroit Pistons. Against the Eastern Conference’s best team, and the second-best team in the league by defensive rating, he had a night. A career night. 40 points. 4-of-7 from beyond the arc. 10-of-12 at the free throw line. Add 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 stocks, and you are staring at the most complete game of his career.
Then came the contrast.
As he walked into the postgame press conference, the game ball tucked calmly against him, the chaos disappeared.
This is a man who lives on the edge during games, who thrives in disruption and confrontation, suddenly quiet. Grounded. Almost serene. No bravado. No chest pounding. Even after a performance he will remember forever and the leather under his arm to prove it, he spoke softly. He reflected on that moment before the storm. The meditation. The calm that makes the chaos possible.
“It’s just me focusing on my breathing, trying to calm myself down before the game starts,” Brooks noted of his pregame ritual. “Just getting into like feeling the whole crowd and the whole like atmosphere of the game.”
It’s a “Medataive thing”, he added. “It puts me in my mode.”
He was in his mode on Thursday night, all right. His 40-point performance surpassed his previous career high of 37, which came in a loss as a member of the Grizzlies in 2021.
But that stare comes from somewhere else too. Yes, it is meditative. But it also serves another purpose entirely. Dillon admitted as much afterward. He talked about being a kid and watching Iron Mike Tyson. That is where it started.
Oh “When I was a kid, I used to watch Mike Tyson,” he said. “That’s probably where I got the stare from, too, was probably Mike Tyson.”
That is the contrast. Stillness paired with menace. Meditation paired with aggression. A man at peace who is fully prepared to drag you into chaos. Dillon is not staring into nothing. He is staring into you. And once he senses the balance tilt, once he feels the fear creep in, the switch flips. Calm gives way to attack. And by then, it is already too late.
Dillon the Villain, right?
It was Villain t-shirt night, after all, and his head coach entered the press room donning one. When Suns’ sideline reporter Amanda Pflugrad said, “Love the shirt,” Jordan Ott responded.
“Yeah, I do, too, after that. Like I said, we can give it away every night.”
“He had a great night, obviously, career high…and we needed all of them.”
That Brooksian edge does not live on adrenaline alone. It is built. Repeated. Earned in empty gyms when nobody is watching. “There’s a piece that you guys don’t get to see is like off outside of the game,” Ott said. “How he communicates on the court in practice or shootaround, in our film sessions.”
“I saw Dillon was working last night in the gym,” he added.
Brooks pointed to Kobe Bryant as the blueprint. He talked about watching Kobe Muse a couple nights earlier, soaking in that footage. The idea that readiness is not a switch you flip on game night. It is something you drag with you every day. Off days included. Especially off days.
That is the contrast again. Chaos on the floor, discipline behind the scenes. The snarling competitor versus the quiet worker. While others rest, he shoots. While the noise fades, he sharpens. Kobe understood that separation is created when effort becomes routine. Dillon has taken that lesson and made it personal. Work now, fear later. Preparation first, eruption second.
I happened to be sitting courtside during shootaround, talking with former Solar Panel Podcast host and PHNX GM Greg Esposito, when Mat Ishbia walked up. He acknowledged the work we do at Bright Side, and I thanked him in turn for giving me reasons to write positive things. About this team. About the way they play. He smiled and fired back a familiar refrain. “Well, I told you guys.” You damn right he did.
Behind him stood Dillon Brooks. Not listening. Not watching. Locked into his routine. Multiple basketballs pounding the floor at once, a blur of motion and intent, hands busy, mind elsewhere. Work before words. Process before praise. A few minutes later, he drifted to his usual spot. Feet set. Breathing controlled. Eyes distant. Living fully in the moment before the moment.
Contrast does the rest. Quiet preparation versus loud results. Empty gym habits colliding with a packed arena payoff. That calm turned into the best scoring night of his career. Not a fluke. Not a surprise. A culmination. In a game that was not only enjoyable to watch, but a genuine pleasure to witness. Chaos earned. Release delivered.
I can feel it coming in the air tonight…
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