In the delightfully wholesome TV show Ted Lasso, which stars Jason Sudeikis as an American college football coach plucked from Wichita State to manage a fictional Premier League soccer team, the season 1 finale is entitled “The Hope That Kills You.” This is a common refrain in sports – because anything is possible, you begin to believe in the improbable. And the sports gods tend to crush that belief in exceptionally cruel ways. In the first half of Golden State Warriors’ play-in game against the Los Angeles Lakers, I started to hope. And while they came ever-so-close to rewarding my hope and my faith, the Warriors ended up on the wrong end of a Steph-esque dagger 3 from LeBron James.
The Hope That Kills You (Warriors 100, Lakers 103)
