If you think Tuesday's loss is the absolute end, I question. I question not of the Celtics. Not of Joe, not of Jayson, not of Jaylen. Or anyone else you can name. I question of you. Every last one of you. More specifically, I question why. I question you specifically. Because why should you be afraid of the worst? Dare the fears of our power, the strength of that power in the vision for #18. Using that daringness, and perhaps just then it matters less if we are afraid. Instead, I choose to believe in myself, this team, and its hope. Hope, you see, in fear's shadow, that's my greatest motivation. If you're still fearful? Shakespeare once penned in Antony and Cleopatra that in time we hate that which we often fear. We can hate this. Sure we can. But life isn't that simple. It doesn't get more forgiving. It doesn't get easier. As must we, as must the Celtics: With greater resilience and with greater strength. Let go of what we wanted, a win in four or five. But live the life planned for us, in seven.
These fuckers have tried to bury us, under a mountain of shit, literal and figurative. But did they know we were seeds? About to blossom? And that shit was fucking fertilizer, to give us further growth? And should a branch fall off, a leaf fall by the wayside? Fucking clean it. It can hurt more than the pain of the initial tear. But you've got to repair it.
Go onto the end. Provide hate to the city that loves. For without love, there is no hate. Use that hatred, that sorry twisted, gutted feeling as power to control into strength, to move forward. The emotional ties that bore us together can be shattered just as fast. Just ask any of us how we felt five hours ago before Game Five tipped off. Now it's time to replicate those feelings to another city. We shall go on to the end, fight in Philadelphia, with our evergrowing strength and confidence. The courts, the hoops, the three-point line. But without surrender.
This game is not the end for the Celtics. Nor the beginning of Boston's end. Rather, this game will be just the end of the beginning.