Last night before turning in (at 1:27 a.m.) I read this comment by Boston head coach Ime Udoka:
“We had to do it the difficult way. We have to do it again. It could have been an easier road, obviously, if you get the win tonight. But we’re 2-2 now. We know we can do it. We’ve done it before.”
I have no skin in this series, I am a Miami "Heat" partisan, but that comment got under my skin and in my head and kept me awake in the dark still later, thinking. Ime Udoka is a first-year coach of a young team. There is no "We've done it before"; this iteration of the "Celtics" has never been here before. Experience can, of course, be overrated and Udoka is drawing on experience not in the Finals while his opponent has Finals experience.
It is also not a generic team that callow Udoka and his players are battling, not one fungible with those to whom they "have done it before" and "can do it again." It occurred to me as I lay there that if I were Steve Kerr or any of the players I would want our play to message Udoka assistance in distinguishing among his opponents, so many inanimate hurdles on their "road" to a championship: We are the Golden State "Warriors." We are known worldwide if you don't know quite who we are." If I were Kerr I would like our play to announce to Ime Udoka, in the words of the U.S. Marine Corps marching chant,
"Everywhere we go-o (everywhere we go-o),
People want to know-o (people want to know-o),
Who we are-are (who we are-are),
So we tell them (so we tell them),
WE ARE THE "WARRIORS" (WE ARE THE "WARRIORS"),
The mighty, mighty, "Warriors" (the mighty, mighty "Warriors")."
Steph Curry expressed similar sentiment post-game:
"Felt like we just had to let everybody know that we were here tonight."
I trust that message was received.
