Written by John Hnat

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What I believe, Mr. Baker, is that this is all far from over.

They are down three games to two against a veteran Celtics team, including losses in their last two games.

They have to win on the road or else watch a promising season (one in which they won roughly 60 games in the regular season) slide down the drain.

Even if they do get past the Celtics, their season is pretty much over .  Their prospective Eastern Conference Finals opponent is currently resting, having just completed a dominating four-game sweep over the Atlanta Hawks (which in turn followed a dominating four-game sweep in the first round of the playoffs).

Yep, those 2009 Orlando Magic don’t stand a chance.

You do realize that here in 2010, the Cavs and Magic have traded places, don’t you?  Last year at this time, we as Cavs fans were riding high.  They destroyed the Pistons in the first round of the playoffs.  They steamrolled Atlanta in the second round.  They won all of those games by double digits and never once seemed to be in peril of losing a game. 

Meanwhile, Orlando was being pushed to their limits.  The Magic prevailed over Philadelphia in a first-round series that was closer than most expected.  They then faced the Celtics in the second round, and that series stretched to seven games before they finally emerged victorious.

And then they faced the Cavs.  Few people gave the Magic any sort of chance of winning the series.  How could they?  The Magic were beat up after two tough series.  The Cavs looked like world-beaters, having destroyed pretty much every team to cross their path since the season tipped off.

We know all too well how that one ended.

Well I, for one, am v-v-v-very interested to see w-w-what’s going to happen next.

The point here is simple:  if you think you know what is going to happen next, you are fooling yourself.  Truth is, none of us knows what’s going to happen tonight in Boston, or (if they get there) Sunday afternoon at The Q. 

I am not saying that the Cavs are going to come back and win this series.   It’s no great insight to say that if they continue playing the way they have, their season will be over tonight.  Right now, LeBron James is a mess.  He needs to change his uniform number from #23 because he is tarnishing its legacy right now.  (And when I say “legacy”, I mean the legacy of Derek Anderson.)  (No, not that Derek Anderson, the other one.)   And somebody needs to find where Coach Mike Brown has been held, release him from his kidnappers, and return him to the Cavs’ bench, where he can replace the impostor who has been strolling the sidelines thus far.

What I am saying is that we don’t know what tonight will bring.  I don’t know.  You don’t know.  The players and coaches don’t know.  The talking heads on ESPN don’t know.  And if any of you think that you DO know, you’re simply fooling yourselves.  I can definitely see a Game Six in which the Cavs continue to sputter, lose by 20, and launch themselves into an offseason full of turmoil.  Equally as plausible, I can see a Game Six in which the Cavs repeat their Game Three performance, and have the Whatever Sponsor It Is Now Garden crowd headed for the exits long before the final buzzer.  My crystal ball can also see a nail-biter, a game that comes down to the final shot.

Saying “I don’t know what will happen next” is not popular, nor is it a way to sell newspapers or generate website hits.  The idea of not knowing, and of not being in control of what happens next, is terrifying to most people.  “Not knowing and not being in control” sure describes much of life, doesn’t it?  At some deep level, that’s probably why most of us became sports fans in the first place.  Sports gives us the illusion that we can predict what will happen next.  It deceives us into thinking that we’re in a world where outcomes can easily be projected based on what has gone before.  And even better, when our projections are way off base, we don’t have to concern ourselves with any consequences.

Don’t believe me?  Go to any sports bar in the country.  Check out Internet message boards, whether on this site or elsewhere.  Everybody – and I do mean everybody – is convinced that they are an expert, and that they can call the next shot.   (Hey, I’m including myself in that everybody.  Thanks to the wonder that is Google, I can’t hide from my predictions anymore.)   Or look at participation in fantasy sports leagues.  Just about every sports fan is convinced that they can build a team better than the folks who actually do it for a living.

Right now, at this moment, the sports universe is full of people confidently predicting that the Cavs don’t possibly stand a chance in Game Six.  How can they, right?  The Celtics have looked dominant the last two nights!  And the Cavs have looked terrible!  Actually, they’ve looked worse than terrible!  They need to practice just to raise their game to terrible!  And this game will be played in Boston!  We already know what’s going to happen, so they may as well not even play the game!  The Cavs can just forfeit, and then TNT can fill the air time with the premiere of whatever-series-featuring-an-over-the-hill-actress they’re debuting this year!

(Mind you, most of those exact same people were confidently predicting a five-game series win for the Cavs after Game Three.)

So if we can’t predict what will happen next, then what should we do?  The message is simple:  embrace the unknown.  It’s what makes sports (and life, for that matter) fun.   Nobody foresaw the change in the Cavs from Game Two to Game Three.  Nobody foresaw that the Celtics would respond so dominantly in Games Four and Five.  In a series that has been defined by unpredictability, trying to predict what will happen next is about the last thing you want to do.  But if you want to go ahead and do it, realize that you could look very foolish by Monday morning.

This is fate we’re talking about, and if fate works at all, it works because people think that THIS TIME, it isn’t going to happen!