Can’t Win ’Em All: Game Sevens and the Sting of “Almost”
You go into every season knowing how it might end. Only one team gets to raise a banner. You remind yourself: Can’t win ’em all. But when you love three teams — and all three crash out in soul-crushing fashion — that line rings hollow.
The Nuggets. The Avalanche. The Warriors.
They each had a real shot. They each gave us reason to believe. And now? All gone. Not with dignity. Not quietly. But in the kind of gut-wrenching, momentum-sucking exits that leave you questioning every decision, every trade, every missed rotation. This wasn’t just a bad postseason — it was an emotional mugging.
Let’s start with the cruelest phrase in sports: Game Seven.
The Nuggets walked into enemy territory as underdogs, sure — but not underpowered. Nikola Jokić, fresh off another MVP campaign, was in full form. “You never go into a game thinking you’ll lose,” Jokić said. “But sometimes… the shots don’t fall. That’s basketball. It’s pain, too.” They had momentum. They had the best player in the world. They had every reason to believe.
And yet, it unraveled. Missed opportunities. Cold spells. It wasn’t just that they lost — it’s that they had it. Game five was theirs. Game seven should never have happened. You sit there, hours after the buzzer, staring at nothing, because it all slipped away in slow motion.
Meanwhile, down in Dallas, the Avalanche faced the most Texas energy imaginable: loud, cocky, insufferable. And who was the dagger? None other than Mikko Rantanen — the man we traded midseason. Two third-period goals. “I never wanted to leave,” Rantanen had said after the deal. “But once I got to Dallas, I had something to prove.” He proved it, all right. And he sent us home in the process.
The Rantanen deal made no sense when it happened. Still doesn’t. Cap space? Flexibility? None of that helped when he was torching us in our most important game. You don’t trade away a Cup hero mid-window — not unless you’ve lost your direction. Now that memory is burned in: Mikko in another jersey, celebrating in our faces, as our season dissolved. Nathan MacKinnon summed it up best: “It just hurts. We believed. That’s what makes it worse.”
And then there’s Golden State.
The Warriors stunned the league by adding Jimmy Butler midseason. It felt like destiny. Grit. Experience. Playoff swagger. “We thought we had it,” Steve Kerr admitted. “We thought this was a group that could do something special.” Steph and Jimmy together? That was the script. Until Steph pulled his hamstring and the whole thing crumbled.
They didn’t just lose in five. They evaporated. No miracle threes. No classic rally. No Warriors magic. Just silence.
“This wasn’t how I wanted it to end,” Curry said. “It’s hard not being able to go down swinging.” And maybe that’s what stings the most — there was no swing. Just a stumble.
None of these teams were tanking. This wasn’t a rebuilding year. The Nuggets are just two seasons removed from a title. The Avs still have a championship core. The Warriors made a win-now move that could’ve changed everything.
That’s why this hurts. These weren’t long shots. These were contenders. They had the pieces. They had the belief. And each one fell short — in a different way, but with the same sickening finality.
There’s no tidy wrap-up. No consolation prize. Just Game Sevens that won’t stop echoing and a postseason that kicked you in the teeth.
Because in sports, resumes don’t matter. Banners hang because of bounces, not belief. And this year, every bounce went the wrong way.
But here’s the truth: I’ll be back. You don’t bail when it gets bad. You don’t only wear the colors when the confetti falls. You stand in the wreckage and wait for next season. Because that’s what being a fan is. You take the gut punches and come back for more.
So yeah — can’t win ’em all.
But damn it… just one would’ve been nice.
