It's a well-documented fact that I am cursed as a sports fan. Cursed as a human, really, because I discovered at a very young age that I like sports. And sports end in disappointment 99 percent of the time. In my 34 years of life, sports teams for which I have an active rooting interest have won championships two times:
Oh, and then there was Real Salt Lake, which won the Major League Soccer Cup in 2009, and although that's my local soccer team, I wouldn't classify myself as an actual fan because I rarely watch them play.
The University of Utah beat Alabama in the 2009 Sugar Bowl, but I didn't start attending The U until that fall, so I wasn't technically a student at that point.
I became a fan of the Texas Rangers the year after they lost in two consecutive World Series, and they haven't come close to making it back any time since then, 10 years ago. However, Rougned Odor landed a really solid punch on Jose Bautista in 2016, which was cool.
I stopped cheering for the Chicago Cubs after following them for my entire childhood about two or three years before they finally won a World Series. It got to a point when I just couldn't handle all the losing anymore.
Of course, there are my beloved Utah Jazz, which lost to Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls in back-to-back NBA championships, but that's another story for another time.
"This Could Be the Year"
This year, I really thought the Jazz had a chance to go all the way. I really, truly did. There was a stretch of the season where we won, like, 23 straight home games, I think, and we were just blowing fools out by 20 points every night. It was so much fun to watch. Honestly, if the Jazz didn't go up by 20 at some point in the game, it was almost disappointing to me. I remember that there was a point in time - I think it was February 25 or something? - where I actually had the thought, "This could be the year."
Yikes. For the first time in my life, I actually thought those words.
But can you blame me? The Jazz were the best team in the National Basketball Association for nearly the entire 2020-21 season, finishing with the outright best record in the league for the first time in franchise history. This earned them the #1 seed for the playoffs and home court advantage throughout.
There was some speculation and discussion about whether the Jazz would keep playing hard through the end of the season to clinch that top seed - and whether they even should. It sometimes becomes a controversial strategy for teams to "tank" (intentionally lose games) to position themselves in a favorable postseason matchup, sometimes to the ire of basketball fans. Such was not the case for this year's Utah Jazz; I was proud to see that we kept fighting to the very end, securing the best record by a half game over the Phoenix Suns.
I thought, if nothing else, we could hang our proverbial hat on the fact that we were, statistically, the best team in the league this year. We played really well all season - despite nagging injuries to several key players - had three All-Stars for the first time since the 1980s, and ultimately had a Coach of the Year finalist in Quin Snyder; two finalists for Sixth Man of the Year, Joe Ingles and eventual winner Jordan Clarkson; and the now-three-time Defensive Player of the Year, Rudy Gobert. Without a doubt, this regular season was one for the record books. And it felt good. Really good.
The Injury Bug Strikes... But Would it Even Matter?
One of the few major concerns, heading into the playoffs, were injuries to the Jazz's two most important offensive players: Donovan Mitchell, who missed the last 16 games of the regular season due to ankle pain; and Mike Conley, whose recurring hamstring soreness kept him in and out of action throughout some stretches of the regular season and forced him to miss Game 1 of the first round, against his former team, the Memphis Grizzlies.
The Jazz would go on to lose Game 1 against Memphis, at home, which was quite disconcerting. In my mind, Memphis was a great matchup for the Jazz; we beat them three times in a six-day span during the regular season (no exaggeration), but my prediction of a four-game sweep in the first round did not come to pass..
But Conley returned for Game 2, and the Jazz beat Memphis four straight times, eliminating the Grizzlies in five games. Because that matchup ended earlier than other Western Conference series, the Jazz were forced to wait six days for the winner of the Clippers-Mavericks series. Ultimately, the nationally acclaimed Los Angeles Clippers moved on, which didn't scare me at all. The talking heads on sports radio love teams from big markets like L.A. and always favor them in the postseason, so their words meant nothing to me.
Unlike the Jazz, the Clippers tanked their final few games of the regular season - most likely to avoid having to play their rivals, the Lakers, in the first round - and it took them a full seven-game series to squeak past the Dallas. Well, the Jazz were clearly a better team than the Mavericks in the regular season, so I figured the Jazz would win the second round series convincingly, in five or six games, and move on to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 2009.
Meanwhile, LeBron James' Los Angeles Clippers got ousted in the first round by the 2-seed Phoenix Suns, which was hilarious, and the Golden State Warriors didn't even make the playoffs this season, so things were looking really good for the Jazz. Certainly, a Utah/Phoenix showdown in the Western Conference Finals was imminent.
The Jazz won the first two games against the Clippers, thanks to some incredible offensive performances by Donovan Mitchell and a Game 1-winning block by Rudy Gobert. What was better? The Jazz had done it without Mike Conley even lacing up his high-tops. The hamstring injury keep him sidelined for the first two games and, thankfully, it didn't hurt us. I did get a bit concerned, though, when Paul George collided with Donovan with seven seconds left in a game that was already out of reach for the Clippers. The game was all but over, yet there was our superstar, writing on the ground in pain. Donovan went down hard and looked like his ankle was really bothering him. However, he'd have a couple days to rest up and we'd be all right. Tired bodies notwithstanding, we were up 2-0 and things were looking good.
With injuries piling up for the remaining teams around the league, if we could just get our guys back up to full strength, we'd have an amazing chance at making a run to the Finals, and our best shot, arguably, ever to actually win it. "Rest up, boys," I pleaded, "and take care of business."
There Was No Way the Clippers Would Beat Us... Right??
Two games in, I was very excited. All I wanted was a split of the next two games in Los Angeles, and the Jazz would finish it off in five games, I told myself. There was no way the Clippers would beat this Jazz team four times out of the next five games. Not a chance.
The series shifted to Hollywood, and the Jazz got thumped in Game 3. It was ok, I thought. In fact, I wasn't even stressed at all! Just win Game 4 and bring it back home to close it out. Easy.
Game 4 was ugly. Conley remained out due to injury, and the Jazz just couldn't figure it out. The series came back to Utah, tied 2-2. The Jazz came out on fire in the first half. Bojan Bogdonavic seemingly could not miss. The Jazz shot upwards of 60 percent from the field in the first 24 minutes. But we went into halftime with a measly five-point lead. Shooting the way we did, you would have thought we'd be up by double digits, at least. Coming back out in the second half, it was like we forgot how to put the ball in the hoop. The Clippers kept pouring on the offense and the Jazz couldn't get any stops. We lost Game 5 in front of our notoriously loud home crowd and would have to head back to California for Game 6 with our backs against the wall.
Spoiler: Game 6 was very similar to Game 5. The Jazz came out blistering hot. I even tweeted, "The Jazz are not messing around." We built a 25-point lead at one point. It was glorious. "Stomp the throat," I texted my family. Just keep the pedal to the metal and bring it back home for Game 7. In the second half, however, the Jazz made some very interesting defensive decisions. And when I say that, I mean that we, for some dang reason, chose to let a Clippers player stand wide open in the corner on every single play. It's ok to do that sometimes if the guy you're leaving open can't shoot. But guess what? The Clippers COULD. NOT. MISS. They should have called me up and put me in because I totally would have stood in that corner with my hands up. That's more than anybody on the court was doing!
The villain this time around was not Michael Jordan. It wasn't even Denver Nuggets stars Jamal Murray or Nikola Jokic, like it was last season WHEN THE JAZZ BLEW A 3-1 LEAD. I DIDN'T EVEN BLOG ABOUT THAT ONE! No, no. It was some dude named Terance Mann. Like, I honestly didn't even know who this guy was a couple weeks ago. But we left him open time and time and time and time and time again and he lit us up for a career high 39 points. That's more points than he ever even scored in a college game. Now, the Jazz are notorious for letting random no-name players get career highs, but in an elimination game with our season - and possibly an NBA championship - on the line?!? Terance Mann?? He only missed six shots in the entire game, and he was shooting a lot. That's an incredible night, no matter who you are. And we let him absolutely wreck us.
Needless to say, the Jazz lost their fourth straight game to these Clippers -- a game in which their best player, Kawhi Leonard, did not even play, mind you! -- and we got bounced from the playoffs.
Let this sink in: we played our butts off in the regular season got beaten in the second round by a team that tanked, heading into the playoffs. Ugh. So dumb.
Also frustrating: we were back, somewhat, at full strength for Game 6, in the sense that Mike and Donovan were both playing, but you could tell that Mike was kind of just going through the motions (bless him for even trying), and Donovan looked like he was maybe 70 or 80 percent healthy at best for the final two or three games of the series.
And we lost to a team led by freaking Paul George (who will go down as the second most overrated first-ballot Hall of Famer of all time, next to Tracy McGrady) and some dude named Terance Mann, who won't even be in the league anymore in three years. Mark my words on that one. Why. Why does this happen.
Editor's note: Terance Mann had a whopping 9 points in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals.
I was basically furious, but I held it together because this is just the kind of thing that the Jazz do, every single year. I even predicted it on two separate occasions, earlier that day. "Double-digit Jazz loss." I knew it was going to happen, and then it did.
Oh, What Could Have Been...
Of all the years for us to choke, why did it have to be this year? No LeBron, no Steph Curry, home court advantage all the way... This was our year! After all the bull crap we had to go through when Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19 last season, resulting in the complete shut-down of sports in North America... In a year where a flock of birds hit the team's charter plane and caused them to make an emergency landing... In a year where LeBron and Kevin Durant openly mocked the Utah Jazz during the selection of All-Star teams... Man, there should have been such an incredible "30 For 30" documentary about this team. "The Team of Destiny," they would have called us. The team that defied all odds and all the hate and disbelief from the national media. That should have been us. That should have been this year. The path was practically paved in gold.
Phoenix would have been tough, but the league ruled Chris Paul out for (so far) at least Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals for COVID-19 health and safety protocols, and the Suns without CP3 did not worry me. The only two teams I really didn't want to face late in the playoffs were Philadelphia and Brooklyn, both of which were eliminated in the Eastern Conference within days of the Jazz losing. If we could have made it to the championship, we would have gone up against either Milwaukee or Atlanta (the two teams currently facing off in the Eastern Conference Finals). Man, that would have been perfect. Could have been Jazz in five. Sickening. Soul-shattering for lifelong fans like me.
It's just so frustrating to spend all season watching the games - and I try not to miss many games, if we're playing well, which we were! - and to pour in countless hours of my attention, then have them rip my stupid heart out and stomp on it over and over again.
Why didn't the Jazz make the appropriate defensive adjustments in the second half of those second-round games? How could they play so well in the first two quarters, then just abruptly stop making threes? Why couldn't the injuries to our star players have come at the beginning of the season, not at the end of it? Couldn't we channel that mid-season magic one more time and run a string of eight or 10 consecutive home victories? Is any of that too much to ask?
Pain. It's just... pain.
As my friend Scott Aylett and I discussed after the abrupt end to the Jazz's season, there are a million things that would be more satisfying than to get emotionally invested in sports ever again. We could stare at the wall and watch paint dry. We could go kick some dirt around for 15 minutes, which could possibly provide some unexpected joy. There are movies and TV shows and video games and books out there that will give a tremendous amount more satisfaction in a two-hour span than can ever be felt at the end of a basketball season.
Why was I cursed to be this way? Why must I continue to follow sports, year after year? How could I be so foolish?
It sucks to think it, but maybe it's true: if the Jazz couldn't get it done this year, with everything we had going for us, maybe it's never going to happen at all.
Yet, will I keep watching? Of course. What kind of a stupid question is that?
Death, Taxes and Eternal Sadness
I used to joke that 80 percent of the sadness in my life came from being a sports fan, and the other 20 percent came from women, but I'm married now, which means that sports account for all of the sadness I experience, and that's a straight-up fact. It's a painful, painful life that I've chosen.
All I can hope now is that I am reincarnated as a non-sports fan in my next life. Or as a monkey. That might be kind of exciting, too.
*****
Related Blogs:
If, for some sick and twisted reason, you kept reading until the end of this blog and thought it was funny and/or entertaining, first of all, how dare you take joy in my pain? Second of all, you might find these other blogs interesting:
- The Bitter Pill: My worst sports memories
- Another Bitter Pill: Kobe drops 60 against the Jazz
- #Betrayward: Too Big Yo [for his britches]
- The Bitter Pill 3: The Pass Interference Special
Thanks for reading... and I'll most likely talk to you at the end of next season.
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