The best part of the Warriors’ title is that the Celtics lost

If you’re a Warriors fan, you’ve got a lot of s–t on your plate for the next few days. You have to remain drunk. You have to wander the streets, looking for other Warriors fans you can scream WOOOOOO! at on sight. You have to find a police car to topple over and burn (here’s a bottle of lighter fluid to get you going on that). You have to jump into the ocean because Klay Thompson (rightfully) made it sound like the most important thing in the world, only to remember that the ocean water in San Francisco is colder than the royal family. You have to forcefully wedge Steph Curry into the GOAT conversation and get everyone all argue-y about that particular topic all over again.

But I have one last other, vital thing I need you to do. I want you to remember what’s REALLY important right now, which is that the Celtics lost. Because they did. Isn’t that great? They lost this series, and they can’t un-lose it. They’ll never have a chance to win the 2022 Finals ever again, and that’s f–king great. Are the Celtics themselves an admirable team? Yes. Has hating Boston sports teams solely because of their fans become a tired cliché? Yes. Did I just acknowledge all that as a way of pardoning myself before I go indulging in the cliché for the millionth time? I did. I regret nothing.

Because listen: We already live in a world where the worst people win every goddamn thing all the time. They win sports titles. They win Supreme Court decisions. They win the right to pay Phil Mickelson $200 million to finish 25th in an unwatchable golf tournament. So you better savor every moment when these people eat s–t, because those moments are never guaranteed. So let’s do that right now, because hating the Celtics is both righteous and necessary. Their uniforms are ugly. Their home crowd is a stubble convention. One of their fans will come up to you and scream LEN BIAS’ COCAINE OVERDOSE HAPPENED TO ME! even though they’re 36 years old. Another will scream YOU HATE US CAUSE YOU AIN’T US which, if you’ve ever lived in New England as I have, you know is remarkably untrue. This is a group of people who are annoying enough to make a neutral observer like me not only tolerate the gamesmanship tactics of Draymond Green, but to actively root for them to be deployed. All series long, I was like lol Draymond grabbed that guy’s jersey just to set him off lol my king, like a TOTAL asshat. Again: no regrets. The Celtics deserve to have every insult wielded against them, and then to have those insults recycled and used against them AGAIN.

For there is no better day on the sports calendar than the one after a Boston championship loss. Right now, my mind is a whirl of heavenly, schadenfreude-ian visions. I can see Mark Wahlberg leaving the Garden at halftime, presumably to liberate Ukraine single-handedly. I can see famous podcaster Bill Simmons soothing himself by inviting Adam Carolla over to tell him some jokes about how annoying women are. I can see Dana White standing the way all MMA guys do — with their chest puffed and their arms dangling three inches away from their torso, which is a completely natural way to stand — and huffing that the NBA pays players too much and doesn’t employ enough members of the Proud Boys. I can see Matt Damon no longer feeling bold, nor fortunate. I can see some Tommy from Quincy, all four teeth of him, shoving in a fat lipper before bitching about the refs. All of it brings me great joy. All of it makes me believe in God.

Because the world is better when you lose, Boston. When Jordan Poole nails multiple rude threes to close out third quarters, global carbon emissions go down by three percent. When Jayson Tatum decides to become the version of Ben Simmons that WANTS to take easy shots but can’t actually make them, a hungry child finds a hot meal to eat. When Steph throws up a three from eight-point range that goes in so fast you think you’re watching a time-lapse video of that shot, extinct species suddenly reappear. The Earth shakes off its rust. Life begins anew. There was a moment in the third quarter last night when the Celtics cut the lead to single digits — this whole series was nothing but scoring in large batches — and the Garden crowd got all pumped because they were like we’re coming back! It’s fackin’ 28-3 all over again! I’m gonna be racist to celebrate! and then the Warriors put the clamps on and pulled back away. When all of that happened, cancer was cured and cold fusion was discovered. Simultaneously.

If I have overstated the ripple effect of a Celtics loss, and I don’t think I have, it’s because I know that the triumph of goodness is a rare moment in this world. You know it, too. Come tomorrow, a bunch of aliens will land on earth and they’ll all look and act just like Jimmy Fallon, and I’ll remember everything is awful again. But not today! No, my friends, today we get to celebrate. And while you may be happy because your team won, please take a moment to consider the people on the other side of these Finals. They’re probably in great pain right now, agonizing over what could have been. And that is f–king AWESOME. Never gets old to watch them get what’s coming to them. I’m gonna go steal a tank.