The Lakers Broke Our Window

As if we needed any more reasons to hate the Lakers.

I'm still bleary-eyed from last night, but I woke up with a pit in my stomach that derives itself from the realization that our window might just be closed and 2 out of the 3 years the Lakers were the ones that got to hoist the trophy.  That stings.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not forgetting about 2008.  Nobody can take that glorious year away from us.  And I'm not even slamming the door on next year (yet).  I am not optimistic about this currently constructed team's chances of making it through another regular season like the one we just played and getting back to the Finals, but this year's team taught us never to say never.

With that said, change is coming.  Maybe the starting five will remain in tact (not sure what Perk's recovery schedule is looking like), but there will be roster moves this offseason.  I'm not sure what else Doc has to prove in Boston and I'm not sure he would want to go through another year like this one (all reports are that it has been very hard on him).  You have to imagine that Danny Ainge is going into the offseason with a mind toward building around Rajon Rondo, and that means getting younger, more athletic guys that can run with him on the break.

But I'll get to that more in the next few days (there's this thing called an NBA Draft coming up in case you missed it - I'd largely forgotten about it to be honest).

Today is about looking back and reflecting.  It was a tremendous postseason run that came up just short of the goal.  Moral victories aren't worth many banners, but on days like today we'll take what we can get.  

Three years, one Championship.  If you had given me those numbers 4 years ago, I'd take them in a heartbeat.  But if you told me 2 of them would go to the Lakers, I'd probably lose my lunch.

I can't help but think that there were opportunities lost.  Injuries happen, age creeps up, that's life.  But still, the Celtics were up 3 games to 2 on the Magic last year and couldn't close out.  They were up 3 games to 2 this year in the Finals and couldn't close out.  

The 2008 Championship means that we'll never think of this team as a failure, but it's just a shame they couldn't have done more.