I’m sorry that my title is a long nonsensical run-on sentence but I woke up this morning in a glass cage of emotion.
Last night was the type of game that comes along only a few times in a lifetime for your team…maybe a few times in a lifetime period.
The Celtics looked pathetic in the first quarter. A bunch of my Friends came over to watch the game and my friend Bombs was so enraged that some of them took up a count of how many times he said “give me a f-ing break!!!”. He was over 30 before halftime.
To top it all off, Rondo looked even less confident than usual (probably due to his ankle issue) and Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett weren’t at my apartment but they also weren’t really at the Staples Center, so I was a little upset.
Also, Mike Breen pulled out the “This one will be a good old fashioned blow out!” card around 7 minutes into the first quarter. I feel like there should be some laws to sports broadcasting on national television:
1) Don’t ever say anything that will both enrage the fans of one team and make you look completely moronic at the same time (I know, the Celtics were down 20 in the first. Fine. But it is the NBA FINALS! Its not like the Lakers got a 20 point lead on The Miami Heat in the first quarter. Then it might be all right to say ‘this might be a blowout’. Butseriously? I mean, I didn’t think the Celtics were wining that game, but I KNEW they would NEVER allow ANY TEAM to beat them by more than 15. Not the way they’ve been playing the last couple of rounds anyway).
2) NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER compare someone to Dr. J, MJ, Kareem, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson…etc. during a game (OR AFTER A GAME FOR THAT MATTER) while they are still young and playing. Its easy to judge Kareem’s place in history because he is retired and has completed a full body of work. Ditto for everyone else I named. But come on! I love Leon Powe just as much (if not a lot more) than the next guy. But he doesn’t look like Dr. J. Ever.
3) Do not be afraid to show some emotion every once in a while. That Ray Allen lay up….that could have been a call for the ages. He broke free and nailed a game winning layup. And they had nothing to say about it.
4) Don’t keep saying “THE CELTICS ARE ON THE VERGE OF THE GREATEST COMEBACK IN NBA FINALS HISTORY!”. That would be like saying “JON LESTER IS ON THE VERGE OF A NO HITTER”. EVERYONE CAN TELL WITHOUT YOU SAYING IT! If you want to show a little flash along the bottom of the screen, fine. But its just annoying otherwise. And Terribly bad luck. I blame the 2003 Red Sox collapse entirely on Joe Buck.
Anyway, the game looked horrible. Things were uncomfortable, I didn’t even have a seat on the couch (in my own apartment!) and the Celtics got outscored 35-14 in the first 12 minutes.
And then things started to come together.
In the second half the Lakers only scored 33 points (how you hold a team to less points AT HOME in the final 24 minutes of a game than you gave up in the first 12 minutes is beyond me). The Celtics went wild. Doc Rivers seemed to know exactly what to do the whole way (7 minute Sam Cassell stint in the first half notwithstanding).
Leon Powe played 7 minutes and notched 5 rebounds and 3 points.
The Celtics were an incredible 7-7 from the paint in the third quarter. Shot selection got them back into the game.
And then somehow defensive execution went way up.
Do you ever feel like Kendrick Perkins is either incredibly good (10% of the time) or incredibly unproductive (as in, commits too many fouls and doesn’t move well enough in the post to put up points like he should)?
When the Celtics went small, I knew they had a small chance.
Eddie House is an emotional player. James Posey is an emotional player. Those two guys have been playing side by side all season long. You can’t tell me that the Lakers have a “deeper bench” as I read from so many ESPN columnists last week. The Celtics easily have the deepest bench int he NBA. They get quality performances out of almost everybody on a consistent basis (Sam Cassell’s dead body aside).
And the way Ray Allen played at the end of the game?
First of all, that lay up where he switched hands and shot it on the way down? Absurd. And when he took Sasha Vujacic one on one to effectively end the game? Ray Allen and the Arm Sock have become Jesus Shuttlesworth. That arm sock is like a fountain of youth or something. He hasn’t played like this most of the season the way he’s taking it to the hole and makingguys look bad. Unbelievable. The way Ray Allen carried the Celtics at the end of the game…it erases any negative things you’ve ever thought about Ray Allen int he clutch. He threw a spear through Kobe Bryant’s heart.
This Celtics team is unstoppable. They truly want it. They love and respect one another and they play like they have been together far longer than a mere 106 games (shit, 47 and 44 games for PJ Brown and Sam Cassell, whom I think does a great job cheering on the guys and getting them pumped up on the bench).
Kobe Bryant WILL LOSE either game 5 or 6 for his team because he is the antithesis of the Boston Celtics. In the words of the Get Up Kids “one star player doesn’t save the team”. Kobe WILL take somewhere between 30 and 50 shots in one of the next two games as soon as he gets pissed at his teammates and decides that they suck. And when he does that, the Celtics will see right through him and shut him down hard. Even if he scores 70 points, the Celtics will win the game 95-85. Mark my words. He’s too selfish not to be the Achilles heel of this Lakers team.
During the last six minutes of the game, I kept reminding everyone to knock on the floor whenever Mike Breen tried to jinx the Celtics. We didn’t get up and celebrate or say ANYTHING until after the final buzzer. And when it went off we all stood up and hugged just like the Celtics.
This is a team that I feel absolutely privileged to root for. I have never felt so close to any of the Boston sports teams I’ve followed my entire life. They get it. They aren’t assholes. They aren’t me-first-crybabies (even when it might be understandable for them to be, ahem, the Cassell instead of Eddie House situation). They aren’t soft guys who are afraid of doing things the hard way. They aren’t guys who mentally check out when they go down big. They aren’t arrogant pricks who think they’ve already won.
This whole season has been about one thing. This Celtics team plays and conducts itself exactly the way that you are taught to act when you’re growing up. They share, they don’t hold grudges, they care for one another, they help each other out, they want what’s best for everyone not just themselves, they can take constructive criticism, they stand up for one another and they don’t give up when things aren’t going their way.
And they’re closer now than a lot of people thought they would ever be.
June 14, 2008 at 12:25 am |
you’re so cute.