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With their 131-92 rout of the Lakers Boston's Big three secured their place in history by bringing the NBA championship trophy back to Beantown.
Devastated.
Humiliated.
Annihilated.
Overrated.
All of these terms can be used to describe the incredible fraud that is the 2008 Los Angeles Lakers team, a club that was singing "kumbaya" coming into the postseason and fooled all the pundits, like my clueless colleague Colin, into thinking it was an unstoppable, united force by breezing through the first three rounds of the playoffs en route to a surefire coronation as the best team in the land.
And then they met up with the real best team in the league: the Boston Celtics, version 2.0.
By now everyone knows the story. The Cs finished with the worst record in the NBA last season (24-58), missed out on a chance to get the number one pick in the draft (again), and then Director of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge engineered deals for sharpshooter Ray Allen and defensive force Kevin Garnett, who along with team captain Paul Pierce combined to form the nexus of what would be the Celts' first title-winning team in 21 years.
Nearly one year later the transformation is complete. The Celtics had the best record in the league this year at 66-26, the best road record, the best record against the "tougher" Western Conference, the Defensive Player of the Year (KG), Executive of the Year (Ainge), and they just set a slew of playoff marks en route to capturing banner #17, the most in the history of the league.
Did I forget to mention their Finals record of 9-2 against the Fakers? Sorry.
After jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the Finals against the heavily favored Lakers on the strength of the stifling defense that had been the hallmark of the team all season and Paul Pierce's gutty play, Boston traveled to the left coast for the dreaded three middle games of Red Auerbach's designed 2-3-2 format.
With a nearly unblemished home record in the postseason all the Cs needed to do was win one at the Staples Center, where the disinterested fans are measured by their 'Q' rating rather than basketball knowledge, and the title was all but assured.
By taking Game 4 in stunning fashion, winning 97-91 after rallying from 24 points down to stun the team and the few true fans in the biggest comeback in Finals history, the championship was basically guaranteed to be clad in green.
After a near-miss on Father's Day in Game 5, the teams traveled back East so the Celts could win it in style - in front of a rabid home crowd of Boston fans that hadn't seen a championship clinched in the city since Bird's Celts in 1986.
One epic, embarrassing, record-breaking, foundation-shaking beatdown later, all that was left was the crying. Pierce, who scored less and passed more in the clincher, was named Finals MVP, and another unsung hero, point guard Rajon Rondo, carried the load for a team that seemed to have a different guy step up every game to take the burden off the Big Three's shoulders.
There were tears of joy for Garnett, Pierce and Allen, who shook off years of toiling in mediocrity by cementing their legacies as champs, and coach Doc Rivers, who has been criticized and vilified for his lack of in-game skills and inability to juggle a roster, became a championship-winning coach.
And there were tears of sadness from league MVP Kobe Bryant and the Lakers, a team that was supposed to be the best in the league but turned out to be a bunch of purple-clad posers.
In the end they were decimated by a Green Machine that shut down the MVP and chewed up and spit out the rest of the role players like a piece of sour candy, and when the dust settled Bryant walked off the court knowing his legacy remains tarnished as he has yet to win a title without a certain behemoth center rattling the rim next to him.
The Celtics won title #17 on June 17th while legendary C's players like Bill Russell, Jo Jo White, Tommy Heinsohn and #17, John 'Hondo' Havlickek, looked on.
As the team and fans mobbed center court to celebrate the win, confetti falling everywhere and "We Are the Champions" blaring from the Garden sound system, Garnett embraced his mentor Russell and shouted in his ear "I got mine" in reference to the ring that Russ offered to share with him if he didn't win one himself.
Yup, the 2007-2008 Celts all got theirs.
And the fans of Boston sports got theirs, too - yet another major sports championship.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Celtics complete miraculous turnaround with title #17
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Boston = Titletown USA
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This sight from the Red Sox ring ceremony, featuring the Boston trophies from all four major sports, sums it all up
Every summer ESPN, the worldwide leader in aggravating product placement and overbearing, lowest common denominator programming, runs a series of special promos designed to fill the time when baseball is the only active major sport.
A few years ago it was the inane "50 States in 50 Days", then it was the sophomoric "Who's Next?", followed by the equally moronic "Who's Now?"; many presumed this summer's installment would be "Who the F- Cares?"
Instead this year the geniuses at the WWL have come up with a different country-unifying gimmick called "Titletown USA", in which the nation votes on what city or town it thinks is the best in all the land. Twenty municipalities will make the final list, and potential winners include sports hotbeds like Shelby, North Carolina, Boise, Idaho and Ottawa, Ohio.
Well don't bother voting people because after the Boston Celtics defeated the Detroit Pistons in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals Friday night, I am hereby declaring the contest officially over.
With the 89-81 victory the Cs made it back to the finals for the first time since 1987 when Larry, Kevin and the Chief, the original Big Three, ruled the parquet at the original Gahden and played in their fourth championship of the decade.
And when you combine this stellar rebound season of the Cs with the 3 championships the Pats have earned this decade plus the two World Series titles the Sox have won in the past four years, there is no doubt that the city of Boston, located in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the heart of New England, is indeed the Hub of the Sports Universe.
When Boston and LA tip off the 2008 Finals this Thursday night it will evoke a flood of memories in native New Englanders over the age of 25 like myself, who grew up in an era when all the Boston sports teams were at or near the top of the heap.
Along with the four title appearances and three championships the Celts won in the 80s the Sox went to the World Series in 1986 and made the playoffs in 1988 and 1990, the Bruins made the playoffs every year and went to the Stanley Cup Finals twice (88 & 90 also), and the Pats, although they had some rough seasons, still made the playoffs three times in the decade and played in one memorable (i.e. forgettable) Super Bowl in 1986.
In other words for Bostonian sports fans it was the "me" decade, when all of our franchises ruled the Earth, a happy, carefree time we all took for granted because we didn't know any better.
Until the 90s came.
In that decade we all began to realize that sporting success could be as fleeting as an American idol winner's career as none of the major teams made any waves in the postseason:
-In 1996 the Bs began a stretch of missing the playoffs in 6 of the next 10 seasons
-the Pats made the playoffs just three times and got spanked in another Super Bowl before ending the decade with a 1-15 debacle season
-the Sox sucked so bad that even though they made the playoffs three times they lost to the Cleveland Indians every time, a fact that pissed them off so bad they had to go and get Manny Ramirez just to exact some sort of revenge on the Tribe
-and the Celts began their downward spiral when the lost the Big Three to age and injury (Larry in '92, Kevin in '93 and Chief in '94), and the death of superstar-in- the-making Reggie Lewis to a fatal heart condition in 1993 sent the franchise into a tailspin that had continued up till this very season.
But now it's a new millennium, and so far the Boston boys are back and better than ever. Well, except for the Bs, but their time will come.
Two titles for the Sox obliterated an 86-year-old curse, three rings for Tom Brady cemented him as a legend and Hall of Famer despite his weaselly coach, and now Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and the rest of the gang Green are letting us hop into our IROC Z and party like it's 1987.
So get out your Member's Only jacket, crank up your Whitesnake cassette , pop a copy of Fatal Attraction in the VCR and enjoy the ride.
Because Boston is officially Titletown again, whether the rest of the nation likes it or not.
Sorry, Shelby.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Who's your daddy? Spurs sweep Cavs
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The giddy yet reserved Spurs raise another championship trophyThanks for not dragging this lopsided series out any longer than absolutely necessary, because if these teams had to play any more games over this weekend, the television ratings would have given new meaning to the phrase "friends & family only."
Instead of making the American public go through that kind of misery, Cleveland did the right thing and succumbed to the inevitable eventuality of San Antonio achieving its fourth title in the last nine years (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007), putting up a fight till the end but ultimately coming up just short, losing 83-82.
Tony Parker, a.k.a. the Luckiest Man on the Face of the Planet, was named the Finals MVP after he averaged nearly 24 points/game and was a major offensive catalyst in three of the four Spurs wins.
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3-time champion, Finals MVP, and engaged to one of the hottest women on the planet-dontcha just fucking hate this guy!
LeBron scored 24 points after his girlfriend gave birth to their second child at around 1:oo am, but he was 10-30 from the field and did not shoot the ball well all series (36%)
Tim Duncan racked up his fourth title while Parker notched his third and first MVP trophy just a few weeks before his Paris wedding to Eva Longoria, who wept court side when her man's name was announced as the MVP.
Everybody now- awwwwwwwwwww! (Lucky bastard!)
Anyway, so now that's over and everyone can get around to doing whatever it is they do when the NBA isn't on. And judging by the abysmal ratings for this series, that would be exactly the same thing they do when the NBA is on.
King James and his paupers surprised everyone and had a nice run, but unfortunately it all came to a crashing halt. Now all they need to do is find a coach with balls, a guard who can distribute the rock so James doesn't always have to, and a big man who doesn't have lead feet (Ilgauskas), hands of stone (Varejao) or a stupid tuft of hair on the back oif his neck (Gooden.)
Until then, here's some more pictures from the last NBA game of the 2006-07 season.
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Move over Ashley; we have a new "Hottest Sports Fan"
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Do you think she was taking a picture of me?!.jpg)
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Wednesday, June 13, 2007
NBA Finals: Thanks for coming, Cleveland
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This non-call on Bowen did not decide GM3- the Cavs inability to seize the game didThe game started with an incredible, Hendrix-esque rendition of the National Anthem by slide guitar magician Ben Harper (wikitrivia: he's married to Laura Dern-yowza!) that brought the already overly-enthused crowd to it's feet and had the players ready to rock & roll.
In fact the whole opening scene for the first NBA finals game in the city's history was befitting a summer Hollywood blockbuster, from the introduction of Tim Duncan first to Lord Vader's theme, to the ear-splitting roar that rose through the crowd when the PA announcer finally introduced King James last amid a cornea-searing display of pyrotechnics.
Unfortunately, then the game began.
The Spurs and Cavs combined to set basketball back 50 years as the two teams managed to score the second-fewest points in a Finals game since dawn of the shot clock era in 1954-55.
They were on pace to shatter the record of 145, held by Ft Wayne & Syracuse in 1955, when the teams had tallied just 130 points (67-63) with 4 1/2 minutes to play, but a late flurry fueled by back-to-back threes and a bunch of frees kept them from the ignominious achievement.
As poorly as both teams shot (Spurs- 41%, Cavs 37%) and as ugly as a game that's 40-38 at halftime and 55-50 after three quarters can be, the thing actually came down to a thrilling conclusion, which is more than can be said for the first two games of the series.
That's because San Antonio, which turned a five-point deficit near halftime into a five-point lead going into the fourth quarter, tried every way humanly possible to give this game to the Cavs.
Want proof? Tim Duncan shot 6-17 (14 points) and grabbed only nine rebounds (the Spurs were out-boarded by Cleveland 48-41); Tony Parker was 7-17 for 17 points, but he did hit one of the clutch treys at the end that may have sealed the MVP for him; and sixth man extraordinaire Manu Ginobili (0-7) nearly dropped a goose egg, netting just three points, all on free throws in the final minute.
The only way the Spurs held the lead was the disparity from the 3-point arc; San Antonio shot a blistering 10-19 (53%), while Cleveland was an atrocious 3-19 (16%), including misses on its 14 of its first 15 attempts-yikes!
Even still the Cavs had plenty of opportunities to take this one back and salvage this series in the final minutes. After taking a 10-point lead at 67-57 with 6 1/2 to play, San Antonio went on a five-minute drought where it missed three shots and turned the ball over three times.
But after Cleveland cut the lead to two, 67-65, on two James (25 points, 8 rebs, 7 ass) free throws, the moment was ripe for the Cavs to snatch the lead, the game, and bring some respect to the city and these woefully rated Finals.
Alas Cleveland could not get over the hump, thanks to some questionable decison making by James (passing it to Varejao down low-why?) and the foul shots by Ginobili, and the Cavs chance to knock some of the bite out of the Spurs and extending this series past four games was lost.
That's why the "controversial" play on James at the end was really more like a minor inconvenience rather than an outrageous oversight that could have changed the game.
LeBron was trying to get free for the game-tying trey with five seconds left, and as he came around the top of the circle, Bowen flailed at him and brushed his shoulders & back, but James still got off a good, unadulterated shot that hit the the rim and came tantalizingly close to going in.
Was Bowen trying to foul James on the final possession with the Spurs up by two and just five seconds to play? Of course, he and his coach admitted as much after the game, but James wasn't in the act of shooting anyway, so it's uncertain if he would have been awarded three frees.
No matter; after initially expressing outrage at the non-call, James backed off in the media room, saying the brush did not affect his shot and he simply missed the 28-footer that could have miraculously tied the game.
Classy move, Bron Bron.
Because he knows the series is all over but the crying.
You know things are bad when the anthem performance is the best part of the game
And there could be a lot of tears flowing into Lake Erie by Thursday night.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Spurs turn King James into a pauper in Game 1
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You gotta love this look Duncan shoots James; it says 'you know you want what we got, and you ain't gonna get it this year'.The Spurs carved up James & his Cavs like butter-soft prime rib, with the Batman & Robin duo of Tony Parker, a.k.a The Luckiest Man on Earth, doing his best Steve Nash imitation, and Tim Duncan rejecting LeBron so much he must have felt like Anthony Michael Hall in a John Hughes flick.
LeBron was a miserable 4-16 from the field, tallying just 14 points, and although he did grab seven rebounds, he had only four assists and one steal while turning the ball over six times.
Those TOs were the result of poor, cross-court passes that the Spurs guards intercepted like DBs snare lazy laterals, and whenever his highness did try to go to the basket, he was met by a phalanx of security forces that cut off his path and/or shoved the ball back in his face.
While it took James until nearly halfway through the 3rd period to score his first basket, Parker & Duncan were having their way with the over matched Cavs from the get-go.
Parker, who is marrying actress Eva Longoria one month from today (7/7/07), played like a man who is about to win his third (championship) ring and then hand his first (wedding) ring to one of the hottest women on the planet. He scored 13 points in the first half, most of them on speedy, twisting trips through the lane, a-la Nash, and if he wasn't scoring then he was completing picturesque bounce passes in traffic to his teammates for roof-raising assists, another forte of the man they call Nashty.
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Much like this loose ball, a Game One victory was out of James' reach
Game 2 is in San Antonio on Sunday night, so LeBron, coach Mike Brown and the rest of the Cavs have a couple of days to come up with a gameplan that either forces James to be more aggressive in his game, or that will enable his teammates to make some of those shots that he can't.
One good place to start is to give electric rookie guard Daniel "Boobie" Gibson more PT.
After his coming out party vs. Detroit (31 points in Gm 6), Gibson saw limited action in this game, but did manage to lead the Cavs in scoring despite playing only 28 minutes.
Plus, who doesn't want to see more boobie? Sorry, that was poor.
Oh, and another piece of advice for Cleveland: downplay that poster-job of LeBron over Duncan.
After all, that play came during the regular season.
When the ball doesn't taste nearly as bad.
King James ready to take the NBA Finals by storm
New school LeBron and the Cavs take on the retro, Tim Duncan-led Spurs in a Finals straight out of an ABC Sports executive's wet dream.
You can bet Tim Duncan has heard enough about this dunk already.
The popular thinking among "those in the know" is that the veteran, savvy, playoff tested Spurs should have little trouble defeating neophyte Cleveland for its fourth title in nine years.
After all, San Antonio plays smart basketball, has a 1-2 combo of Parker & Duncan that's as good as any in the league, and will have Bruce Bowen & co. will clamp down on LeBron James like Mike Vick's pit bull on Paris Hilton's chihuahua, which will force the Cavs supporting cast to help win games without LeBron having to score 48 points every night.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
The day LBJ saved the NBA
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The San Antonio Spurs and the Detroit Pistons were both supposed to make it to the NBA Finals this year.
James (20 pts, 14 rebs, 8 ass) didn't have the monster game like he had in Game 5, but he didn't need to. With a career-high 31 points from rising star guard Daniel Gibson and another solid defensive effort that helped limit Tayshaun Prince to five points and Chauncey Billips to nine, the Cavs used a complete team effort to defeat the ultimate "team" in the league.
