SALT LAKE CITY — There’s a scene in the final episode of the TV series “Ted Lasso” where the title character, Ted Lasso, asks a trio of coldhearted fans who frequent the same local pub in South London to look within before the last match of the season. With the steepest odds stacked against the fictionalized AFC Richmond side, Lasso asks, “Why don’t you have a little hope?”
The trio bursts out into a collective chuckle. The pub owner follows suit.
“Have you not lived here long enough to realize?” she asks. “It’s the hope that kills you.”
The wonderfully hilarious and sweet-natured novelized world of Lasso managed to cross into the very real world of these NBA playoffs recently, and more specifically the currently rocky terrain beneath the No. 1 overall seeded Utah Jazz.