The Celtics And Warriors Aren’t Overreacting. Neither Should We.

One of the most dangerous post-game habits in sports—and business, actually—is the natural default to overreact. We are all promised wins and losses, ups and downs, success and failure. Making too much of any of those moments can be tragic.

Still, we do it. Obsessively.

If you’re a fan of the Boston Celtics or Golden State Warriors, who are vying for the NBA Championship, you would be forgiven for wondering just what the heck was going on in this series after the first two games. I mean, before the teams played a single minute, the experts (read talking heads) and oddsmakers had Golden State, whose starters had 120-plus games of Finals experience among them, wiping out Boston, whose players boasted, well, zero Finals games.

That prognosis ended abruptly after the Celtics ran the Warriors off the court in game one with solid contributions from its deep bench. The storyline coming out of that contest focused on Boston’s 21 three-point shots, an achievement that led many to view Boston’s victory as nothing short of a passing of the torch from Golden State’s Stephen Curry, the greatest three-point shooter of all time, to the Celtics sharp-shooting subs.

One popular pundit known for his dramatic reactions to individual performances said that if Boston’s bench continued to shoot well, “Golden State doesn’t have a chance” and that if Boston won game two, the series was a wrap for Boston.

It’s a good thing for Golden State that the pundit wasn’t their coach! Prior to the Finals, the Warrior’s coach Steve Kerr told reporters about the pending matchup with the Celtics, “What I like is it's two teams that are mostly built with patience and through the draft and development, player development and continuity,” said Kerr. “I think that's good for the sport.”

Does this sound like somebody who is likely to overreact when he finds his team down 0-1 at home after game one? You bet your deep-three it doesn’t. Golden State made the adjustments required and relied on their preparation to course correct. And in game two, they came out and returned the favor to Boston. Led by a Draymond Green-inspired “attitude adjustment” as well as the Celtics’ unforced turnovers and cold shooting from the bench, Boston headed back east with their green tails between their legs.

How do you imagine Boston will react?

The mistake of overreaction affects every aspect of our lives. It’s what makes us feel too proud of finishing a long run on Saturday and then feeling too low on Sunday at the cookout where we ate that extra burger. One day you’re feeling like Usain Bolt; the next day, you’re kicking yourself because you feel like Fat Bastard, the Austin Powers villain. What you really hate about yourself in those moments—well, mostly Sunday—is the loss of control and the blow to your self-image.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. That’s the good news, by the way. You don’t have to second guess yourself every time something happens that wasn’t according to plan. When an account is lost or a meeting falls flat or sales are disappointing. Use the moment to grow, not overreact. We don’t have to be quick to point fingers at other people to deflect fault, especially when nobody else is particularly concerned, or at least not as much as we are. We can take a breath, be honest with ourselves, make a little adjustment and come back stronger and wiser the next time.

Dark stories circulated when Apple Computer’s founder Steve Jobs was fired from his own company and again when Android phones established their leadership in the smartphone marketplace. But Tim Cook must have missed those memos, and Apple seems to have done okay since then by doing what the Celtics will do in Boston when the Finals resume there tonight: keep showing up.

We wrote about the qualities that go into Golden State’s “championship DNA” in this space a week ago. And anybody who loves basketball and has seen the 17 green banners hanging from the rafters above the Celtics’ home court knows that the most important number to these Celtics is 18.

As Kerr observed in his calm, measured way, these are two teams that keep showing up. It’s looking like an entertaining and informative series. And if it is so, it will be because neither team’s psyche swung as wildly as the pundits. Great lesson there.