White Suburban Punk

I have heard exactly zero voices in support of the referee from the US/Slovenia match.  Not only did he disallow the winning goal, but he had several other calls against the US, including giving an erroneous yellow against Robbie Findley for a nonexistent hand ball that will cause him to miss the Algeria game.  This ref’s bank account needs to be closely audited — I wonder if FIFA does that.  Anyway, the US got the draw, and after England’s lackluster performance against Algeria ended in a 0-0 tie, the US and England will go through with wins in their last match.  A big if, however.  The games will be played simultaneously Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Netherlands continues to roll.

It took me more than a day to digest this one.  A harsh loss to a hated team, and the loss of Kendrick Perkins was clearly huge.  The whole game felt like the Celtics were trying to pull off an upset, and it almost worked.  In the last four minutes, Ray Allen missed two open looks and Paul Pierce missed an open three pointer.  Plus, Pau Gasol had two traveling violations that weren’t called, resulting in four points.  But without Perk, the C’s simply got killed on the boards and no amount of heart or will could make up for it.  I have scrupulously avoided all post game coverage, but I did see that Kobe somehow won the MVP.  That’s downright baffling.  I would almost say that the Lakers won this thing despite Kobe.  His first half performance nearly killed them, after all.  Gasol deserved it.  I think I would’ve voted for Derek Fisher or Lamar Odom over Kobe, for crying out loud.

Anyway, now we wait to see how this team will come back next year.  The pundits seem to believe that Doc Rivers is as good as gone, Ray Allen will be a free agent, and Paul Pierce will probably opt out of his contract so he can sign a new one before the new collective bargaining agreement is negotiated.  Whatever the case, this team gave us one hell of a three year run.  Championship in ’08, and devastating injuries in ’09 and ’10.  Still, the run this year was as unexpected as it was fun.  They knocked off three of the NBA’s superstars in Dwayne Wade, Lebron James, and Dwight Howard.  And they very nearly won the whole damn thing.

Well, that was pretty much a disaster.  The Celtics played like crap, the Lakers played inspired basketball, and Kendrick Perkins got hurt.  It looks like Perk will miss Game 7.  The only good thing that happened was that Rasheed Wallace didn’t get a technical.  Can they win Game 7?  Sure, I still think they can, but I’m definitely worried.  After two wins in a row, the C’s were probably due for a stinker, but I was actually surprised by how intensely the Lakers played.  With their backs against the wall, they came through.  When Kobe actually shares the ball, this can be a damn good team.  Hopefully he reverts to his usual self in Game 7 and tries to make it all about him.  We’ve got to expect a better game from the Celtics, too.  In the Wired segments, Doc Rivers kept telling the team to share the ball and make the extra pass, but it seemed to me that they were actually doing that.  It was just that the extra passes they made were often ill-advised and resulted in tipped balls and turnovers.  Rajon Rondo has had a couple games in a row of relatively poor passing, in fact.  He’s just got to calm down and make the plays he’s capable of making.  And please make some freaking layups.  That’s not just Rondo, but everybody.  I would think that the officials will “let them play” in a Game 7, which they also basically did in Game 6 (although fouls called on drives to the basket seemed very one-sided).  A more loosely officiated game usually favors the Celtics, but not in a game like that where the Lakers were pretty much unstoppable.  There’s no way the Lakers put together two games in a row with that kind of intensity, even if it is a Game 7.  So I expect a much tighter game that will be decided by turnovers and rebounding in the fourth quarter.  Maybe Pierce can win a Finals with a last second shot.  Please?

Photo from SI.com

Kobe decided that he would get ALL the shots for the Lakers in Game 5.  He took 12 in the first half, making four.  Amazingly, Pau Gasol had 12 shots for the game, and he was their most prolific shooter other than Kobe.  Kobe went 9-15 in the second half, 27 shots in total.  Gasol had 12, and both Ron Artest and Derek Fisher went 2-9.  It was funny how Mike Breen kept mentioning Isiah Thomas’ game where he had 25 points in a quarter before he almost reluctantly revealed that the Pistons not only lost that game, but also the series.  Is that how the Lakers got to the Finals, with Kobe taking more than twice the number of shots of his next highest teammate?  I doubt it, but I don’t hear anyone calling Kobe selfish.

The Celtics played a solid game, with Paul Pierce the true star.  This may have been the first game of this series that actually went according to the script.  Kobe goes off, but the Big Four play a good game and win.  I now feel very optimistic about Game 6, and it would be great to avoid a Game 7.  It would also be great to win the series in LA.

Photo from Boston.com

Celtics:  The Celtics lost a heartbreaker/backbreaker last night, so they’re down in the series, 2-1.  It seems they can win with just two of the Big Four sharp all game, and KG delivered.  Rajon Rondo was great for three quarters, but then disappeared in the fourth.  And of course, they got absolutely nothing from Ray Allen and very little from Paul Pierce due to BS foul trouble.  If just a couple of Ray’s open looks had fallen, it might’ve been a different game.

Liverpool: Kenny Dalglish has removed himself from the committee to choose Liverpool’s next manager, indicating that he may think he is the best candidate.  I hope that’s how it works out.  He’s a Liverpool legend and he can be a caretaker until the sale of the club goes through.

Big 10:  It looks like Jim Delany has maneuvered a gun to the head of Notre Dame.  If they join the Big 10, and only them, the current national conference structure and the BCS will apparently remain intact.  Supposedly Notre Dame would join on the condition that they were the only school.  If they refuse to join, the story goes that the Big 10 will go to a 16 team superconference, the Pac 10 will raid and destroy the Big 12, and the SEC will raid and destroy the ACC.  Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Notre Dame, and a bunch of ACC and Big East schools would appear to be left out in the cold, with speculation that Notre Dame would then have a difficult time filling their schedule against teams from the superconferences.  I’m not sure I buy that, but a move to superconferences would at least theoretically increase the chances of an eventual move to a playoff, which could perhaps leave Notre Dame and the other remaining rejects out.

As a Big 10 fan, what do I want?  Sure, I would much prefer a playoff to the BCS, but just aesthetically I would rather have only Notre Dame join the Big 10 than five other schools that include Rutgers.  Football scheduling would be a mess in a 16 team league, where each school would not play seven other schools, while in a 12 team league each team would still not play three other schools.  That could result in a questionable system for a playoff, where you’re not even really sure who the best teams in each conference are. 

The bottom line is that there is no perfect system for football.  There’s just too many teams and there is a limit on how many games they can play.  I want my school to have the opportunity to win the Big 10 and go on to play the best teams from the other conferences.  Some kind of playoff system is preferable to the BCS, but in order for that to happen, we have to go to superconferences?  It doesn’t seem like a great choice to me.  Kind of reluctantly, I guess I have to fall on the side of adding five teams if that will lead to a playoff, which could provide the added benefit of screwing Notre Dame.  And actually, couldn’t all the rejects create their own conference?  The Big Reject Conference:  Notre Dame, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Colorado or Baylor, BC, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Duke, Maryland, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Louisville, and South Florida.  But that’s 18.  It makes my head spin.  I’ll just have to sit back and watch the fireworks.

Photo from Boston.com

Celtics lose game 1, 102-89, to the Lakers.  The Celtics looked pretty bad — tired and lethargic for some reason.  LA won the game inside, with Pau Gasol dominating Kevin Garnett.  That certainly can’t happen anymore.  Garnett had 4 rebounds, Perkins 3, Davis 3, and Wallace 4.  Gasol had 14, Bynum 6, Odom 4, and Artest 4.  The Lakers won the overall rebounding battle, 42-31, with a 12-8 edge in offensive rebounds.  Incredibly, the Lakers also had 16 second chance points, the Celtics zero. 

Rajon Rondo finished with ok numbers, but he also seemed to be taken out of his game somewhat.  He had 13 points, 8 assists, and only 2 turnovers, but 0 steals.  The Celtics were never able to get any kind of transition game going and had just 5 fast break points and one 3-pointer.

The bottom line is that the C’s need to run and bang, especially down low.  The officials didn’t allow either team to get into a rhythm (didn’t the first quarter seem to take forever?), but it wasn’t foul trouble for the Celtics’ bigs that hindered them.  They just didn’t look energized, and it was one of those games where nothing went right.  I haven’t lost faith whatsoever.  The Celtics know they have to win at least one game in LA, and they will be a different team Sunday night.  This time it will be the Lakers who listen to and believe all the adulation before the game.

Rafa Benitez’s six year run as Liverpool manager has ended “by mutual consent.”  His statement: 

“It is very sad for me to announce that I will no longer be manager of Liverpool FC. I would like to thank all of the staff and players for their efforts.

“I’ll always keep in my heart the good times I’ve had here, the strong and loyal support of the fans in the tough times and the love from Liverpool. I have no words to thank you enough for all these years and I am very proud to say that I was your manager.

“Thank you so much once more and always remember: You’ll never walk alone.”

Sad, but I guess it was inevitable.  Still, I wonder why it took so long.  Rafa will probably go to Italy and take over Inter Milan for Jose Morinho, who was named manager of Real Madrid.  Liverpool put no timetable on the search for a new manager, but the speculation should be fun.  Maybe the New England Revolution’s Steve Nicol? 

Photo from Liverpool Echo

Jim Joyce is the latest with a colossal screw up, costing the Tigers’ Armando Galarraga a perfect game.  With two outs in the ninth.  Whatever happened to giving the guy the benefit of the doubt when he’s got something like this going on?  I remember watching the endings of a couple of Nolan Ryan’s no hitters and if a pitch was anywhere near the plate in the ninth inning, it would be called a strike.  Joyce apologized after the game, but it sure looked like he dogged it on the replays.  The commentators all say that he’s known as a  good ump, but how can this happen? 

This latest incident comes soon after Joe West with Mark Buehrle and after Roy Oswalt of the Astros got thrown out for saying, “I ain’t talking to you.”  Now, I keep hearing that today’s umpires are unquestionably better than they used to be and I guess I can buy that they’re under more pressure because of the extensive use of replay, but these incidents are the result of egos and laziness — really, really bad umpiring.  And it’s not just baseball.  The Celtics/Magic Game 5 was atrocious because of the individual referees, too.  The NBA ended up rescinding one of Kendrick Perkins’ technicals from that game, but that’s it, there was no more public action.  At least with these baseball incidents there has been extensive national attention, which hopefully puts pressure on umps to do their jobs competently. 

The 1985 World Series was arguably decided by a bad umpiring call on a play at first base in the ninth inning of game 6.  With the Cardinals leading the series, 3-2, and the game, 1-0, Don Denkinger missed a call at first base on the Royals’ first batter, calling him safe when replays clearly showed he was out.  Single, passed ball, intentional walk, and then a two run single by Dane Iorg, and the Royals won the game, 2-1, and then won game 7, 11-0.  There have also been recent contorversies in the NBA playoffs, such as Larry Johnson getting a phantom call on a 3-pointer in the playoffs and the Sacramento Kings getting jobbed for an entire game 7 against the Lakers.  In soccer, Thierry Henry’s obvious hand ball was missed and France advanced to this year’s World Cup instead of Ireland.

So bad officiating has at least helped decide some very big games.  I know it’s stupid to complain about umpires and officials, especially from a fan’s point of view, but we’re getting close to a bad call or a series of bad calls blatantly deciding a championship.  At the rate we’re going, it will happen very soon.