The Cleveland Cavaliers most likely are going to reach the NBA Finals after taking a 3-1 series lead over the Boston Celtics in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be victims of karma.
If the Cavs blow their 3-1 lead — and the Cavs know a thing or two about teams blowing 3-1 leads — then they can thank Dick’s Sporting Goods. The retailer prematurely began advertising “Eastern Conference Champions” and “2017 NBA Finals” merchandise for the Cavaliers after they came back to beat Boston 112-99 on Tuesday.
The page actually selling the items was taken off the Dick’s Sporting Goods website Wednesday, but Yahoo! Sports’ Ben Rohrbach provided a link to the Google cache version.
Of course, it’s still unlikely the Celtics will win the next three games considering their first two losses in Boston were blowouts, but the same was said about the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI. The Atlanta Falcons can attest to the fact that premature merchandise isn’t a good look after the Pats pulled off the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history.
We’ll get to see if the Dick’s Sporting Goods curse lives on when the Cavs and Celtics meet Thursday at 8:30 p.m. ET for Game 5 in Boston.
