You're trying to take last month's news and net it out with todays news. This is absurd. Let's take is as a given that Person Y stole something from Person X

You're trying to take last month's news and net it out with todays news. This is absurd. Let's take is as a given that Person Y stole something from Person X and was found guilty of that last month. Now there's a question about whether Person X also stole something from Person Y. If the judge today rules for Person X that is bad news for X. If the judge rules for Person Y that is bad news for Y. It's that simple. If the Cavs beat the Mavricks in game 1, losing Game 2 is bad news for them because they would have been up 2-0 instead of tied 1-1.