CLEVELAND – The Golden State Warriors visit the Cleveland Cavaliers this Friday night and I cannot help but think of the four straight NBA Finals between the two teams. The epic 3-1 comeback in 2016 is paramount in all Clevelanders’ memories but what if that comeback fell short? Cleveland could have been like the Buffalo Bills who lost four straight Super Bowls in the early 1990’s.

Cleveland and Buffalo are both situated on Lake Erie and both claim, rightfully so, to have great fan bases who love their teams no matter what. Unfortunately, for these blue-collar cities their sports teams have had little success winning it all. Buffalo has not celebrated a championship since 1965 when the Bills won the AFL and before 2016, Cleveland’s last title was 1964 with the Cleveland Browns.

To understand what could have been let’s revisit the Buffalo perspective from what happened in the early 90’s. The Buffalo Bills were the class of the AFC from 1990-1995 with players such as Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, Bruce Smith to name a few.

Buffalo and their fans had hopes that they were going to be champions but the Super Bowl would prove to be their Achilles Heel. Their best chance was the first Super Bowl against the New York Giants but Scott Norwood missed the game-winning FG wide right. The next three Super Bowls were not that competitive and that left Buffalo 0-4.

Now let’s look at Cleveland, and how 1-3 is immensely better than 0-4. Cleveland had missed out on championships with the Indians in 1995 and 1997, as well as, the Cavs losing the 2007 NBA Finals. Going into the 2014-15 NBA season the Chosen One, LeBron James, had returned and the future was bright in Cleveland with fans who could smell that elusive title.

The Warriors beat the Cavs in their first Finals meeting due to Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving getting hurt. The last two Finals were not competitive because Golden State recruited Kevin Durant, and with that, it leads fans back to the importance of their 2016 run.

Cleveland coming back and doing something that had never been done not only made history but it also sparred Cleveland of having the distinction of losing four straight championship games/series like Buffalo accomplished.

• This article was written by Ed_in_Columbus

*Photo Credit to CNN and Ezra Shaw/Getty Images North America/Getty Images*