Losses tend to stick out in our minds more than wins. The pain of defeat is often a more powerful emotion than the thrill of winning.
For Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum, he still thinks about the team's defeat to the Golden State Warriors in the 2022 NBA Finals on a daily basis. While it provides a great source of motivation entering the 2022-23 season, it's still a tough moment to look back on.
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There's one particular image from the Finals that stands out above the others for Tatum.
"Us walking off the court at home and seeing them celebrate on our floor," Tatum said in an interview with Bleacher Report's Taylor Rooks. "That is an image, a memory, a feeling that I'll probably never ever forget."
How often does he think about that image?
"Every day," Tatum admitted. "And it doesn't help every time I see somebody. 'Hey man, good job in the Finals. You'll be back. I was rooting for you.' I'm just constantly reminded of it every day. That's the tough part about the offseason after you lose. Human nature would want you to be like, I just can't wait to get back there. But it's like, nope, you've got to start back over. You've got to take the proper steps, rest and recover. Get ready for training camp, go into training camp, preseason and start the regular season. It's all a process and you can't just coast through it and be like, yeah, we're going to get back there, because it's not promised. We can't have that mindset that it's going to be given to us."
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Tatum also admitted that he's re-watched the series against the Warriors.
"Yeah. It was tough," he said. "From that standpoint of, regardless of what everyone was saying about me and how I played, afterwards, I never really pay attention to that -- good or bad. I know what I'm capable of. I know I could've done more, and that was the toughest part -- feeling like I let my team down at the biggest moment. And that hurt me more than what anyone else could have said or think about me. Those three or four days afterward, I was miserable. I really, really was. It took some time to kind of get out of that funk and just enjoy my life and enjoy being around my son and my family."
The Celtics made a couple meaningful additions to their roster in the offseason, including guard Malcolm Brogdon via trade and forward Danilo Gallinari as a free agent. These moves give an already-loaded Celtics roster more depth, more scoring and more versatility.
It's no wonder why most projections have the Celtics finishing atop the Eastern Conference standings next season.