The 2015-2016 Warriors hold an undignified distinction of being one of the closest teams to winning a championship without actually winning it.
Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals was tied with less than 2 minutes left. We’re not quite talking about a buzzer-beater 3-pointer from the other team after being ahead by 2, but within Finals history, it ranks as one of the closer showdowns.
What instantly comes to mind as a comparison is the 2014 Finals between the Heat and Spurs. The Spurs were about to win the championship in 6 games, but Ray Allen had other ideas.
Chris Bosh grabbed the offensive rebound as the clock wound down, kicked it out to Allen in the corner, and Jesus Shuttlesworth himself provided a miracle for the fans in South Beach.
Game 6 went to overtime, and the Heat prevailed. They eventually won game 7, and perhaps no other team has come as close to winning a championship without actually doing so than the Spurs that season.
The immediate counter argument I think of in any sport is the Seattle Seahawks when Russell Wilson threw that interception on the 1 yard line during the Super Bowl against the New England Patriots.
The Seahawks ended up losing 28-24, and considering that the Spurs had an entire game to rectify their narrow loss in game 6, I might have to give the edge to the Seahawks in terms of the closest team to winning a championship without actually winning it.
This one was even worse than the 49ers’ Super Bowl loss just a couple years beforehand. The 49ers had 4 plays to gain 7 yards for a touchdown to take the lead near the end of the game, but couldn’t do it.
The Seahawks started a new set of downs on the 5 yard line, and Marshawn Lynch ran the ball 4 yards on first down.
The Seahawks were then on the 1 yard line on just 2nd down. Conversely, the 49ers never actually got closer than the 5 yard line.
Both are extremely painful losses, but the Seahawks not only got closer to the endzone, but had more plays left to gain that last yard.
In terms of just basketball, the Boston Celtics in 2010 are probably the closest comparison to how the Warriors lost in 2016.
The 2010 NBA Finals went to 7 games, and the Lakers and Celtics battled down to the wire. I’d rank the Warriors as being closer to winning than the Celtics, though.
The Celtics were within 2 points with less than 15 seconds remaining in the game, but they hadn’t actually been tied since just under 6 minutes to go in the 4th quarter.
The Lakers never gave up the lead again, although it was a close game down to the very end, so the Celtics can’t really claim that they got closer to winning than a team like the 2014 Spurs or 2016 Warriors.
Another painful reminder of that reality came when Richard Jefferson shared on Snapchat what the 2016 Cavaliers championship rings would look like.
Richard Jefferson just snapchatted what the Cavs' championship rings look like: pic.twitter.com/sOaF7YRpwa
— Rob Perez (@World_Wide_Wob) September 6, 2016
Somehow it makes it even more painful that the guy responsible for these images is a former Warriors player.
It would have been nice to have the Warriors logo on those rings, but they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Look for this agonizing image to throw even more gasoline on the fire that is the Warriors’ quest for another championship.