I am not quite sure what to say post-Game 6. I usually take losses with a greater swing of emotion, either sad and disheartened or glowing sense of optimism. These are the general emotions most northeastern Ohioan and Cleveland-ers feel after an exceptional run leading to the doorsteps of a championship.
Yet my emotion is not at any extreme, conditioned from our many days of having found those doors locked upon our arrival. The cynics might say it is tradition. The romantics might say it’s the long process of what leads to the final and long awaited prize. For most of us though, it is just a part of our lives, and this feels ironically no different.
My christening into this “tradition” began in 1986, with the birth of the Cleveland Browns rivalry with the Denver Broncos. A young side-arm throwing quarterback named Bernie Kosar would lead the Browns to the playoffs and into the conference finals, only to go up against another young quarterback, John Elway. Despite a late 20–13 Cleveland lead, Elway and the Broncos came back to tie it in the fourth quarter, and won it in overtime.
I was at home with my uncle and father when it happened. Homemade pizza was being prepped by my dad in the kitchen. An overtime field goal kick would finish off the day, and the evening dinner pizza was tough to swallow. I was too young to understand I had a lump in my throat, and even more so, too young to understand why.
The next few years would help provide more education, and each lesson is easily earmarked by symbolic quotation names: “The Drive” and “The Fumble.” Yet these were not limited to football.
A young Cleveland Cavaliers team began to form in parallel with the new era of the Browns: Brad Daugherty, Mark Price, and Larry Nance. And with all the successes, amazing games, and textbook teamwork, came the eventual fate of another name to symbolize a moment in time when fate would take hold, and the wind from the powers that be would shift from at our backs to in our face: A young out-of-no-where small-forward, Craig Ehlo, in his first few years, proved to be successful both as a role player, and in guarding a young superstar named Michael Jordan.
And even as the pages of history were being written laced in the ink of our glory, an in-bound pass to Ehlo with just six seconds left in the final game in the 1989 1st round playoff series against the Bulls, would leave the Cavs with a 1-point lead. What we thought was a series-clinching shot soon turned into Cleveland’s cruel sports fate making its presence known once again.
With still three seconds remaining on the clock and Ehlo guarding Jordan on the other end of the court, his airness caught the ball and broke free for a shot at the top of the key just before the clock expired. Game over. Series over. The crushing moment is forever immortalized with a fist swinging number 23 there to crystalize another named moment in history: “The Shot.”
