1) It's exciting to have actual end-of-season tension that isn't wrapped up in the reverse standings

2) These guys have a ton of fight in them. They're hungry for a win and they're fighting tooth-and-nail. They didn't get the result tonight, but it felt like it was within their grasp for most of the game

3) We're seeing competitive rotations and not an entire roster shut down. We don't have 10-day contract guys from the G League playing 40 minutes to close the season.

4) Our coaching staff is ready to fight for the team. Seeing Coach Mark absolutely thrash the officials was wild. I've seen him frustrated but nothing like that. I think this has been an important developmental year for our head coach as much as it's been for our players.

5) This rebuild is so insanely ahead of schedule. If you'd have told me that I'd be punching air because of a game like this against GSW and its implications for the play-in, I wouldn't have believed you. Whether the play-in is in the cards or not, I hope these tough losses to end the season will motivate the guys to keep working hard in the off-season, and we'll acquire some more size and rebounding to tighten the screws on this roster. There will undoubtedly be more growing pains next year as wel, but the future is incredibly bright.

Tonight was super frustrating, but there's still a lot to be positive about. A lot of the criticism others have raised about Dort's 3pt shooting volume and the team's rebounding woes still stand of course, but I'm choosing to head to bed with some perspecitve. Big basketball feelings are definitely back though!