I know this team is supposed to have the least chance compared with the big 3 era teams, but some how it feels this loss is the hardest to swallow. Our opponent is not a good team, we have home court advantage, history is on our side, and yet we let it slip from our fingers.
Game 7 in 2010 far outweighs this one. I'm pretty much over this one already. I tried to keep a level head throughout the playoffs and keep thinking of the bigger picture.
This one hurts when it wasn't supposed to because our expectations changed over the course of the year, and over the course of this series. At the start of the year, and even when Kyrie went down, we'd all have been happy if we had been told we would make the ECF and be one game away from the Finals. But over the course of the playoffs and the Cinderella run continued they made us feel anything was possible. The stage seemed to be set, we were at home, LeBum on his last legs, it felt like destiny for an unheralded team to make the Finals.
They just couldn't quite seize the moment. At the end of the day they have LeBum, gotta take your hat off to him. That level of intensity and commitment to the cause and ability to execute when the pressure is greatest is what the likes of Tatum, Brown, Rozier and Co should aspire to. At the end of the day they executed better as a team. But this failure at the last shouldn't take away from what has been an awesome season by a team that was really fun to watch and gave us some great moments.
I think once we've had time to think and the loss isn't so raw we will find we have plenty to look forward to with this team.