OAKLAND, Calif. -- For a few minutes late Thursday night it seemed like everything might just be OK after all. Kyrie Irving was laughing. His father, Drederick, was joking around with LeBron James' agent, Rich Paul. His agent, Jeff Wechsler, was smiling.
"I'm just trying to keep a smile on my face," Drederick told me on his way out of Oracle Arena. "Just trying to think positive."
It was the kind of thing you say out loud to everyone you see, and to yourself in quiet prayer. As if saying it enough times might somehow tilt things and make it true.
Deep down, they all probably knew there was something very wrong with Irving's knee. That the MRI he was scheduled for Friday morning was going to reveal something broken or badly sprained or bruised.
The athlete always knows his body best and Irving was visibly shaken after his left knee buckled in a noncontact play with two minutes left in the Cleveland Cavaliers' 108-100 overtime loss to the Golden State Warriors in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
"You can hear in the tone of my voice that I'm a little worried," Irving said, as he sat at his locker. His knee was too painful to put weight on, so he had to limp badly into the shower. But when he was offered crutches and a hand with his bag, he fought it.
This season has been about believing for Irving and the Cavaliers.
In themselves, in their city, in the promise that LeBron James came home to fulfill.
This was the season the other shoe wasn't going to drop at the worst possible time.
The season their hearts weren't going to be broken by a freak injury or impossible Michael Jordan jumper. LeBron had returned, and after the way he left not many had ever thought that was possible. At the start of these playoffs, he showed his teammates his championship rings for motivation, and it seemed that nobody was as inspired by it as much as Irving.
For weeks he had pushed himself through pain in his knee and foot, believing that some of that must be endured along the way to a championship.
After Irving helped the Cavs defeat the Chicago Bulls, ESPN's Dave McMenamin noticed that Irving had begun writing the word "Whiplash" on his shoes before every game. It turns out that Irving had stayed up late one night watching the film about a ruthless music teacher, played by J.K. Simmons, who pushes a young drummer to his breaking point as he tries to inspire greatness from his young student. Simmons won an Oscar for the role. The young drummer, played by Miles Teller, nearly lost his mind, but he did eventually become great enough to upstage his teacher in a concert.
"It's just about the drive to be great," Irving told McMenamin, when asked why the movie had resonated with him so much. "It's awesome."
Perhaps, like the drummer in the movie who played though bleeding hands and, in one sickening scene, internal injuries suffered in a car accident on the way to a concert, Irving simply pushed himself too far and through too much pain.
You can see why he would. Irving was the guy who had to dig the Cavaliers out of the enormous crater LeBron James left when he bolted for Miami in 2010. As the first overall draft pick in 2011, he became the first stone laid in the Cavaliers' monumental rebuilding project. He had, quite literally, started this thing from scratch.
He knew how bad things had been these past four seasons, when the Cavs lost more games than any other team in the NBA.
And this season, with James back and a team around him that had been built to win, Irving wanted to turn things around almost as much as the city itself.
So he fought the crutches when they were offered to him late Thursday night. He shooed away those who offered sympathy.
It was better to have false hope than no hope at all.
This series isn't over yet; it just feels like it is after Irving was ruled out for the next three to four months with a fractured kneecap.
The Cavs were all talking about the next man up, who would step in and hopefully up, with Irving out.
This season has been about believing, after all. It's just a lot harder now.