White Suburban Punk

This Blog hasn’t posted in a long, long time so I figured I’d throw some thoughts against the wall and see if anything sticks.

I’m still trying to get my head around the Celtics’ trades.  Before these moves, the Celtics may not have been the favorite to win the title, but they were certainly a favorite.  The major issue was injuries — would the team be healthy enough for the playoffs?  They are 29th in the NBA in team rebounding and traded away their best rebounder.  A healthy Shaquille O’Neal is still better offensively than Kendrick Perkins, and he’s still enough of a defensive presence.  But they can hardly rely on him being healthy.  Last year, the lack of rebounding in Game 7 (with Perkins out) was arguably the major reason for the collapse and loss.

Perk was going to be a free agent after this year and he had apparently turned down a 4-year, $22 million offer.  Today, he signed a 4-year, $34.8 million extension with Oklahoma City.  But with the age and health issues with this team, there really should be very little planning for the future.  They have to go for broke now.  Sure, Paul Pierce needed a backup and apparently Jeff Green is a fine player.  Now the Celtics also appear to have added 6-foot-10 Troy Murphy, who incidentally has never played in a playoff game.  Is that even possible?

So what did the Celtics lose?  A ferocious defender and rebounder and a key chemistry guy.  What have they gained?  Basically more bodies and depth, but the bottom line is the success of these moves depend enormously on Shaq’s health (and the return of Jermaine O’Neal).  Danny Ainge really rolled the dice on this one and will be justly criticized if it doesn’t work out.

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.

Finally, the Celtics finished off the Magic.  No one noticed the officials (besides JJ Redick), Paul Pierce was The Truth, and the C’s got an unlikely spark from Nate Robinson.  This was an extremely determined Celtics team, and they seemed to be putting forth the extra effort defensively that was missing in games 4 and 5.  After I severely dumped on Orlando early in the series, I have to admit that they did show some heart in games 4, 5, and 6, but you can’t just show up for half a series and without question, the better team won.  The Celtics have gone through three of the NBA’s “stars” in Dwayne Wade, Lebron James, and Dwight Howard, and either Kobe or Steve Nash is next.  Eastern Conference champions again, and the Finals start Thursday out west.

See, this is why basketball, and the NBA in particular, is my least favorite sport.  The flow of play, the control of the game, and often the outcome, are dictated by the whims, the mood, and the emotional state of three largely incompetent officials who clearly have their own agenda.  And now this incompetence may decide not just this game, but also the series.  Both technicals on Kendrick Perkins and the one on Rajon Rondo were simply wrong.  Egregiously wrong.  To add injury to insult, Glen Davis was knocked out of the game and possibly the series by a Dwight Howard elbow on which no foul was called.  Sure, these things happen, but it at least could have been an over the back call.  Numerous fouls were called in the game for far less contact.  Watching this game, I felt like a sucker, like I had been conned.  Like I was the victim of a thief and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.  In no other sport are the officials able to assert as much control over the outcome as in the NBA.  And they are astonishingly incompetent.

Why doesn’t this happen in the college game?  Sure, you see bad calls and missed calls in the college game, but you don’t see officials completely taking over games and deciding the outcome.  For some reason, college officials seem to understand the role of the official better than in the NBA.  Officials in every sport are not supposed to be noticed if they are doing their job competently.  NBA officials are paid extremely well — one source I found states that rookie NBA refs make $80,000 and the veterans $300,000 – $400,000 per year.  That must be a major part of it — a sense of entitlement, a belief that “I deserve respect because I make $xxx.”  It also appears to engender a feeling that they are part of the show, that they are supposed to be noticed.  But this is the playoffs, for crying out loud.  These are supposed to be the best officials the NBA has to offer, and that game was an absolute rip off.

Photo from Boston.com

The Celtics played like absolute garbage last night, while Orlando played their best game of the series, and it still went to overtime.  Boston seemed to play well in short stretches, especially right after the technical was called on KG, when it seemed the Celtics had finally been awakened.  But bad turnovers just killed them.  Orlando actually had more turnovers for the game, 19-15, but I can’t think of one Celtics turnover that wasn’t awful.  KG throwing the ball into the stands, Tony Allen not recognizing the shot clock, the aborted possession at the end of regulation.  Defensively, it seemed that Orlando finally made some adjustments and got the pick and roll going, which forced the Celtics into more switches than the first three games of the series combined.  And in the overtime, the Celtics looked tired.  It seemed like they were short on every shot and neither team could get any transition game going. 

Tim Donaghy was on the Dan Patrick Show this morning and stated that he wasn’t at all surprised by the result last night, that it fits the “blueprint” in his book.  He claims that in a pregame officials meeting in a 3-0 series, the NBA representative will show a bunch of Orlando plays that they want called as fouls.  They don’t tell them to have a one-sided game, but their emphasis is always on the team that trails.  If you can believe anything this guy says.

Anyway, I’m not worried, these aren’t the Bruins after all.  It will be even more satisfying for the team to clinch the Eastern Conference on Orlando’s home floor, the team that won it last year.

Photo from USA Today

Rashard Lewis continued his disappearing act with 4 points and Superman (ahem) Dwight Howard had 7 points and 7 boards as the Celtics crushed Orlando Saturday night.  Howard was an astounding -29 for the game.  Glen Davis led the Celtics with 17 points.  Both Orlando and Cleveland have shown themselves to be true front runners, with absolutely no guts or toughness when they face the slightest bit of adversity.  I imagine game 4 will include a massive amount of 3 point launches from the Magic (they took 30 in game 3, making 8).  That’s the easy way to look like you care.  They missed 63 shots in game 3 and had 3 offensive rebounds.

Phoenix beat the Lakers last night to trim the series to 2-1, but no one doubts that it’ll be LA in the final.  Derek Fisher should have a wonderful time trying to contain Rajon Rondo.  I imagine the Celtics will play the Lakers much like they played Cleveland.  Kendrick Perkins and Kevin Garnett will man up Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum while Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Tony Allen will take turns on Kobe.  They will try to force Kobe to beat them single handedly, but unlike Lebron, he might be able to actually do it.  Lamar Odom and Ron Artest are kind of wild cards here, but Odom typically only shows up one game a series and Artest sure isn’t what he used to be.  Defensively, the Lakers are in trouble.  Kobe can take out Pierce, but Gasol and Bynum can’t handle Perkins and Garnett straight up, so Ray Ray should get plenty of open looks from outside.  And Rondo, what the hell are they going to do with him?  I guess they could try to put Kobe on him, but that would open things up for everyone else.  Too many weapons.  That’s my take.  It could be a classic series, and it will be good for the Celtics to close things out tonight and get extra rest, which Bynum especially needs desparately.

Photo from Boston.com