SAN FRANCISCO — He swears he can’t remember records or scores, but he can’t forget an ending. The devastating ones, the jubilant ones and every one that falls somewhere in between. This one, though — the final one — has been an ending from the beginning.
It has taken on the feel of ritual. Every game begins the same way, with Duke‘s players taking the court, followed by the assistant coaches and, finally, Mike Krzyzewski. He walks out of the locker room with a slight limp these days, looking like a man who has left something behind but no longer has time to find it. He is a 75-year-old king at the end of a royal procession, a half-minute or so behind assistant Jon Scheyer, the young heir.
Krzyzewski has made this walk 1,569 times as a head coach, an astounding 1,437 of them in 42 years as Duke’s head coach. For the past two weeks, he has walked out of every locker room knowing it…
