See if this sounds familiar (perhaps you've made one or more if these comments recently):
"If only Adalius Thomas sacked Manning -- he had him!"
"If only Tyree doesn't make that impossible catch"
"If only Rodney knocks that ball out of his hands"
"If only Asante Samuel makes the interception"
"If Tom Brady weren't injured...."
Losing fans ALWAYS wish for plays or circumstances to have turned out differently than they did -- it's human nature. If Tyree had dropped The Pass, Giant fans everywhere would be saying to this day "if only he'd hung on".
Let's savor this moment as Celtic fans but perhaps we should also remember that it actually takes practice to 'take the high road' when you lose. The high road is not that difficult -- in fact, it actually requires less thought and results in far less wasted emotion energy than going down the excuse road. The high road sounds something like this:
"The better team won".
The easy one sounds like this: "The Celtics were the better team". Now try the harder one: "The Giants were the better team". Feel better?
If -- Heaven Forbid -- the Lakers win next year it will be our opportunty to lose with dignity and all we'll need to say is "they were the better team" and be done with it. Everything else is an exercise in futility and is enough to drive one crazy. It's taken me 6 months to accept that the Patriots simply lost to the better team. Now that I've said it, ahhh.... time to move on and embrace a new season.
Hopefully it will be a long while before we utter the words that the C's lost to a better team. But the gods of sports have deemed it inevitable.
So... practice the mantra and be ready -- we may need to use it in 2012.
