A trio of young men passed, laden with enough nachos for a week in the North Woods.  You knew by the time of the player introductions that something was different. As the lights dimmed, and just before the Humongotron belched fire, a fan waved a sign: “LeBron the Real M.V.P.”  Maybe. The Warriors closed the half strong. Draymond Green ignited an 11-4 run in the final four minutes of the second quarter, and Golden State took a 7-point lead into the locker room. No matter. “The Cavs are going to win,” said a woman who gave her name as Ophelia. Calm in the storm, she was here “to be part of the excitement.”  The elite craziness took place in deeper waters. The Cleveland Indians’ afternoon game against the Chicago White Sox provided the undercard, and Tribe fans wandered over from the ballpark to join the throng outside. The vibe was Spring Break North; the dress — what there was of it — was casual, the conversation livelier.  “Did you get him anything for Father’s Day?” a young woman asked her friend. “Who says he’s the father?” her friend answered, not looking up from her drink.  Nearby, another young woman lectured a boy. “Don’t play for a team,” she scolded. “Be a lawyer and own the team.” She added, “I dated a lawyer, and I should know.” The boy was about 2 years old and tiny, riding on his father’s shoulders. Dad and son quickly moved away.  With 1 minute 50 seconds left in the game, James uncoiled a chase-down block of an Andre Iguodala shot. Kyrie Irving hit a step-back shot over Stephen Curry. Curry answered with a wildly errant 3-point attempt on the other end before James was fouled hard. He knocked down the second of two free throws for a 4-point Cleveland lead with 10 seconds on the clock. Chants of “M.V.P.!” rocked the Q.  Please, no more about the Curse. Suffice to say, the Cavs put up a season that any thinking sports fan ought to have been proud to witness. Cleveland has beaten flawed teams, like Atlanta, and it has beaten young rosters just coming into their own, like Detroit and Toronto. The Cavs are smarter than any team that’s tougher, and there aren’t many of those.  It could be argued, while listening to Wiz Khalifa rattle your molars, that sport has sucked the charm out of the contemporary game and replaced it with volume. Marketing is a simple villain. Hunger for karmic justice, and they will offer you a discounted hot dog. Shiver in the cold rain of a half-century of disappointment, and they will hand you a FirstEnergy T-shirt. That is the way the game is played now. It is easy to overlook the obvious even when it is flashed onto a video screen the size of an apartment building.  The real power lies inside, coiled and remarkable. It always has. It is what causes the granny during the Irving warm-ups to chair dance to mad beats. It is what causes the beanpole wearing a Matthew Dellavedova jersey as a belly shirt to lean to his left to misguide a Curry free throw, even if the hoop in question is 2,200 miles away. And yes, it is what turns every “Brian on a car phone” into James Naismith this time of year. No maybes here. We’re going to win. Not “they” or “I.” In the end, the Cavs played like a team with a chip on its shoulder, winning for a city full of people with a chip on theirs.  Which brings us back to Mark, pondering a course of action for the final buzzer. “I’m going to go running in the street,” he said.  It was a beautiful summer night, a gentle breeze finally coming over a Great Lake, past the glass pyramid of the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame. The Cavs were champs. A spell had been lifted without crystals, roosters or the intercession of Madame Zora. And there was nothing left to do except join 20,562 of your closest friends and run in the street.  A version of this article appears in print on June 21, 2016, on page B8 of the New York edition with the headline: In Cleveland, Agony Yields to Confidence and, Finally, Joy. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Disappointment had been an annual ritual among sports fans in Cleveland. Not anymore, not after the Cavaliers were crowned N.B.A. champions.