Now that the Finals have started between the two number one seeds, with the two most popular players in the league facing off, it seems crazy to remember those three days last week when we were talking ourselves into the idea of the Toronto Raptors playing the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Finals.

Sometime between Sunday, when the Thunder went up 2-1 on the Golden State Warriors and the next day when Toronto pulled off a second straight win against the Cleveland Cavaliers, it seemed possible that the Finals could be between two underdogs that everyone expected to just roll over and die.

By Thursday, they both fulfilled their destiny.

But man, for a while there we were joking about how Adam Silver and the rest of the league brass was trembling at the idea of a team from Oklahoma playing a Canadian one, both having dispatched the league’s most marketable stars.

In retrospect, of course, we were idiots. It was Toronto for godsake. They may have been the second seed in the East but they’re the league’s anonymous, easily dispatched team in the sports movie. They don’t even get scenes or names or credits–they’re montage material before the showdown with the hated, really good, rich kids on the cross-town team, including the guy who used to be on your team, the traitor!

Oklahoma City actually has good players and was up 3-1 on Golden State, so the idea of them in the Finals was even less ridiculous, even if Golden State is one of, if not the, best team ever. But you sort of knew, as you watched Russell Westbrook repeatedly slam into a crowded lane and turn the ball over (over and over!) during the second half of Game 5 that if it didn’t happen then, it wasn’t going to happen. And it didn’t.

Such is the best-of-seven series, I guess–even if the underdogs get hot for a bit, the better team almost always wins out.

I don’t know why upsets are so attractive. Is it just the idea of something rare? Is there something heroic about bucking expectations? The idea that, if anything is possible on the court, maybe anything is possible in real life? Maybe you’re not bound to the circumstances you were born and project outward into! Maybe the world has more possibilities than the Nate Silvers have modeled! Maybe you won’t grow old and die! Maybe it won’t just be Clinton and Bush over and over until there are no more Clintons, Bushes, or America left!

Well, whatever it is, it was snuffed out pretty thoroughly, huh?

The NBA playoff slogan this year is “This is why we play the game.”

It’s a cliché typically dusted off during an upset in a football game. “Well Jim, they were the wild card team that was supposed to just be happy to be here, and now they’re on their way to the Super Bowl” and then Jim, who is employed to say interesting or insightful things, says, “That’s why we play the game!”

This year’s NBA playoffs have had some excitement, some upsets, but ultimately worked out exactly like you’d expect: number one seed versus number one seed, Golden State and Cleveland, Lebron and Curry. This isn’t a compelling explanation for “why we play the game.” If anything, from a certain point of view, it makes the entire season that happened since these two teams met in last year’s Finals feel sort of perfunctory.

Maybe there’s something comforting in knowing that the world can be predicted. The universe is not completely chaotic. After all, the Clinton candidacy isn’t surprising, but the Trump nomination is, and regardless of how you feel about Clinton (pretty much how I feel about this year’s Finals) better the devil you know than, uh, Donald Trump, you know?

So, do you believe in miracles? Don’t.