THE AGONY OF DEFEAT by Steve Nadis
By all rights, I should have missed last night's Celtics game. My two-year-old had a late-afternoon nap, which kept her up until 11 p.m., so I should have been reading "Whingdingdilly" to her. Instead I made her watch the last quarter of the game with me, and it was painful to see the Celtics fritter away their lead and let the Pacers back into the series. Don't get me wrong. I can handle defeat; everyone tells me it's an inevitable part of life. I just can't stand losing.

