Did you know that if the regular season ended today, THE CAVS WOULD NOT MAKE THE PLAYOFFS!?!?

That sentence you just read is what we in the writing business call an “impossible conditional.” It’s a common feature in all panic pieces.

The Cavs are 0-2. For Clevelanders, this is our 9/11, except instead of terrorists hijacking planes and flying them into the Twin Towers, our basketball team isn’t playing as well as we would like.

Cavs fans are going through a lot right now, and the best way to deal with their complicated emotions is to publish all of them in an unedited screed. Here’s how to overreact like the pros.

A. Assure People There’s No Reason To Panic.

Put this at the top. It will help you to create an air of panic in the rest of your piece.

Oly Sandor @ HoobsVibe shows us how it’s done:

“There is no reason to panic, but there is reason for concern.”

Perfect.

B. Be Ominous …

Basketball, like other dark arts, is controlled by mysterious forces, not talent, strategy, and luck.

Adrian Wojnarowski @ Yahoo! Sports looks into his crystal ball:

“The Russian’s influence was everywhere in the Air Canada Centre on Wednesday night, where the Cavs trudged through another discombobulated performance. Even a LeBron triple double – 23 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds – couldn’t elevate the incompetence surrounding him in a 101-91 loss to the revived Toronto Raptors.”

The Russian that Adrian is referring to is Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov. Yeah, I don’t get how he affected yesterday’s Cavs-Raptors game, either. Although, he is Russian, so he must be a.) sinister, and b.) skilled in the art of mind-control.

Seriously, if you nothing better to do–and only if you have nothing better to do–read Wojnarowski’s article (ominously titled “LeBron’s future hangs over Cavs’ slow start”), while keeping in mind that Yahoo! Sports actually pays him to write.

C. Compare Data! Any Data!

Statistics are super-important. They make you sound like an expert, and they can be easily manipulated to substantiate assertions or imply correlations.

Brian Windhorst @ Cleveland.com, hit it!:

“Last season, the team didn’t lose two games in a row until February. Then again the Cavs didn’t lose at home until February last year, either.”

FACTS ARE INDISPUTABLE. WE’RE WORSE THAN LAST YEAR. BOOM.

D. Use Rhetorical Tricks!

If you begin your sentences with phrases like “One thing’s for certain …” or “We all know …”, it makes conjecture sound like fact!

The dudes @ WFNY know what I’m talking about:

“One criticism is certainly fair here. Mike Brown’s job was to get this team ready to play in training camp. They are not ready to play. You can blame the flu, or whatever you want, but bottom line is that the Cavs are nowhere near ready to play games that count. Brown deserves the blame for that. Yes, it is a challenge to bring together all these new players and get them to focus, but he’s done it before. Here’s hoping they turn it around before Friday night.”

E. FREAK THE FUCK OUT!

Overreacting is a cornerstone of any overreaction. Just ask an expert, like Kelly Dwyer @ Ball Don’t Lie:

“Cleveland is all wrong. It’s early, excuse away, but Mike Brown is a deer caught in the headlights working in a merciless conference (the Magic and Celtics have won their first three games by a combined 53 points), with no time to lose. I don’t care if LeBron James has yet to turn 25. The time to win is now.”

Or that one guy … what’s-his-name … @ Cleveland Frowns:

“I’m beside myself about tonight’s Cavaliers loss in Toronto. In a town where Jhonny Peralta has been the starting shortstop for the better part of a decade and Brian Robiskie is a second round pick, it’s too much to bear yet another coach who’s too dumb to see what’s apparent to even the most casual of fans.  Not with the Cavs.  All we have is the Cavs.”

He got through two or three of the Kübler-Ross stages of grief. Not bad. But we can get more over-the-top.

What do you have for us, Roger Pimentel @ How To Watch Sports?:

“Last year, Cleveland Cavaliers’ coach Mike Brown was the NBA’s Coach of the Year, and led his Cavs to the Eastern Conference Finals.

And now, after only two games, he’s got to go.”

Well done, sir. Well done.

F. Hedge Your Overreaction!

You’ve just written your 500-word (1000+ for Posnaski) evisceration. When you re-read it, you sound like you allow your emotions to be controlled by the performance of a basketball team that you follow too closely.

Congratulations! You’re on the right track! But you have one big step left.

You don’t want to sound like a crazy person (which you are). So put a few sentences at the end that negate everything you said.

John Krolik @ Cavs The Blog, lead us home:

“Alright, that’s all for now. Again, let’s nobody panic. There are 80 more of these, and then the real season begins. Hopefully this game will be good in the long run by forcing MB to tackle some of the rotational issues head-on. Not the best week to play 4 games in 5 days, but things will get better.”

That’s it! Do you feel better now? No? It sounds like you might be a sportswriter!