Cavs Couldn’t Find A Break; I Couldn’t Find A Shirt

As the fourth consecutive rendition of Cavaliers versus Warriors in the NBA Finals tipped off on Thursday night, my abode was bustling with frenetic energy. The source of this energy had nothing to do with the usual anxiety about seeing a Cleveland team battle it out for a professional sports crown. It had nothing to do with the impending implosion by the Indians pitching staff in which they relinquished an eight-run lead. It was much ado about a shirt.

A youth small, neon yellow, coaches’ pitch little league shirt with a screen printed number two on the back and the Knights of Columbus logo on the front. You see, my six-year-old son had just played a game on Tuesday night and the next game was scheduled for the following night. As working eight-to-five-ers, my wife and I had procrastinated on the laundry front, leaving us scrambling to launder the shirt prior to the next day’s supremely important little league showdown against Dick’s Sporting Goods. There was only one problem – we could not locate this neon yellow shirt anywhere.

The first quarter tipped off. The Cavs and Warriors were trading blows, each starting out with a hot hand. On the home front, every nook and cranny on the main floor of our home was being inspected, with no neon yellow shirts appearing. LeBron was being LeBron, with my eyes darting from television screen to each corner of the living room looking for the neon yellow cue. No such luck with the shirt, and a hot start for the Cavs offered little breathing room after one quarter.

On to the second quarter. As the Cavs widened their cushion a bit, at one point reaching double digits, the search for the shirt seemed to offer a breakthrough. I remembered that I had cleaned up the neon socks that match the shirt from the bathroom floor the day before, as my son had jumped in the shower after returning home from his game the day before. The shirt must be there. As I tossed mattresses and bathroom floor mats on the upstairs level, the Cavs lead seemingly vanished along with my hope of finding the shirt. To cap it off, as JR Smith darted in front of Steph Curry in the dwindling seconds of the first half, my eyes caught sight of something neon yellow a mere fifteen feet away from my bedroom television. Steph buried a heave to tie the game as I realized the neon spec was only a stuffed animal creeping out of my two year old’s bedroom.

The roller coaster of the shirt search was going toe to toe with the ups and downs of a riveting first half of Game One. As the Warriors seemingly took off on one of their patented third quarter barrages, my hope for locating the shirt was evaporating. The emotions so perfectly echoed the events of the personally meaningless basketball game. LeBron willed the Cavs back into the picture with three-pointers as my thoughts turned to figuring out how to tell my son that he wouldn’t be able to wear his team “jersey” to his game the following night. The upstairs of the house had been searched. The main level of the house had been searched. The basement had been searched. All during commercial breaks so as not to miss a second of basketball action.

The fourth quarter offered very little room for shirt searching. Curry drained back-to-back threes as the frustration level boiled to the brim. How could you let Curry get off that patented step-back three-pointer to push the lead to six with just minutes remaining? How could you lose your son’s baseball shirt, a neon yellow one at that? Unbridled joy came with an easy LeBron layup. Pure enthusiasm arrived with a Kevin Love second chance three to trim the lead to one. Then the National Basketball Association’s finest officials, Ken Mauer and Tony Brothers, convened after a controversial charge call against Kevin Durant to allegedly review whether or not LeBron was four or five feet outside of the restricted area, only to overturn the original call of charge and allow Durant to tie the game from the charity stripe. At that point, the hope of finding the shirt was all but gone.

JR Smith darted outside after rebounding a George Hill free throw miss only to not call a timeout, allowing the clock to expire and send the game into overtime. I can only assume Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue had heard about the search for the shirt and was looking around Oracle Arena for it instead of trampling down the sideline to scream for a timeout. It was as apparent that JR had no intention of calling the timeout as it was that shirt would not be found.

Overtime ruled the remainder of emotions. As Klay Thompson jumped back in bounds to nail a corner three, it appeared the Cavs could not recover from another Warriors knockout punch. A Cavs loss left me searching the relatively spacious city backyard with an iPhone flashlight, driving to work after midnight to make sure it hadn’t been stuffed in my computer bag somehow, and utterly perplexed about the lack of timeout at the end of regulation. No shirt, and no Game One victory for the Cavaliers.

While still wired from the conclusion of the Finals battle, a conscious decision was made to utilize this energy in a desperation manhunt for the shirt. Flipping couch cushions revealed a long-missing house key. Rummaging through the dirty laundry for the umpteenth time was as pointless as ejecting Tristan Thompson with 2.6 seconds remaining in a game that had already been decided. The search party had been called off.

Prior to sliding into bed, I would pick up the kitchen. A lunch box lying under the bar stool that was neatly tucked into the island piqued interest. The lunchbox was green with ‘Archer’ outlined in orange on the top, in reference to the name of my two-year-old mischievous toddler. Unzipping said lunchbox uncovered a youth small, neon yellow, coaches’ pitch little league shirt with a screen printed number two on the back and the Knights of Columbus logo on the front. Archer had decided that he was going to pack the shirt in his lunchbox just in case.

A laugh was all I could muster. Ken Mauer, Tony Brothers, and Archer had teamed up to play the ultimate trick on dad. A blessing in disguise, perhaps, as it offered a moment of clarity and perspective. The Cavs searched for a break. I searched for a shirt. I found my target eventually; however, the Cavs will have to wait until Sunday to search further for what eluded them on Thursday night.