Go Celts!
Posted on 05/30/2008 8:48:49 PM PDT by johnthebaptistmoore
Some good news for NBA fans: The rivarly is truly back! It's the Boston Celtics v.s. the Los Angeles Lakers in the '08 NBA Finals! It should be a decent series, and the national TV ratings should be decent as well.
I still don’t know if it’ll be the same as it was in the 80s. We have such a weird obsession with nostalgia anymore...
Holy flashbacks, Batman, will Kareem have a migraine?
Or Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell. Or Jerry West and John Havlechek(sp).
Love the team but Paul Pierce is no Larry Bird.
Everyone at my rehearsal dinner ended up in the Restaurant bar for Game 6, including my Mother!
Oh What a Night!!
BFD - my dreadlocked thugs can beat your dreadlocked thugs in basketball! Bf’in FD
Who on the Celtics roster has dreads?
CA....
who cares?
Go Celts!
I do.
The series and the ratings will be fantastic.
Look for Ariza to lockup Kevin Garnot.
enjoy
Went to HS about twenty minutes from the Garden on the North Shore, late 50s/early 60s. Young HS basketball players, we practically lived in the Garden. Sweet days...
The Celtics won more often then not in those days. I was still never a big basketball fan but I did watch some basketball back in those days and it was occasionally a pleasant enough diversion.
During one of those playoff Celtic/Laker games, I was at a barbeque at some pevert's house, some aunt or uncle of my girlfriend at the time. I remember that because inside the house, the owner put the moves on some little girl and the police had to be called and the wife (of the pervert) was hysterical and it was a scene right out of COPS. Also, the hamburgers were way overcooked and tasted like hockey pucks. But the game was on the radio and people mostly paid attention to that out in the yard while the police did their arresting and report writing thing inside. They told the rest of us in the yard to hang out and chill for a while in case they needed to take statement from us. But they never followed up on that. So as the guy came out in handcuffs, we quickly finished up the beers and started vacating the scene.
Celtics did win big that day.
that’s quite a story! definitely much more interesting than a basketball game. I used to be a huge NBA fan, but the thugs and the gangsters have ruined it, like they have ruined so much for so many. Wouldn’t give any of em a dime now.
I’ve been a Laker fan since the Chamberlain/West/Goodrich days. I lived and died by the Lakers through the 80s, but have not kept up with the NBA much since I got married in 1990.
New career, wife, kids, lawn, mortgage, etc left little time for basketball and I learned about the championships they had won with Shaq via Sports Center the day after they won them.
I haven’t watched an NBA game in over 10 years, but I might actually sit down and watch this series.
I never was a big fan of basketball but during the days of Larry Bird (who was worshiped in these parts), the Celtics were pretty much inescapable. During playoff season, they were on the TV in every bar, restaurant and house you entered during the early-to-mid 1980s.
Then when Larry Bird retired, the Celtics kind of went off the radar around here for a couple of decades and so now that they are back to their winning ways, here we go again. Suddenly the Celtics seem to have all their fans back.
I like your analogy of "my dreadlocked thugs can beat your dreadlocked thugs in basketball." To some extent, the analogy applies in all professional sports. It amuses me to see fans pay big money to sit in stadiums with their $15 "We're number one" foam fingers as if the performance of their home team was a reflection of them.
Now I'm more of a NFL fan than any other sport but when my hometown New England Patriots win a Super Bowl, I don't go around buying $50 Patriots jerseys and thrusting my chest around town like I was the actual guy who kicked the winning field goal or something.
The New England Patriots represent New England like the Arkansas/Illinois bred Clintons "represent" New York. Just a bunch of carpetbaggers coming into town for a big paycheck and when the season is over, the Patriot players trip over themselves in the locker room getting a ticket out of town (especially after that humiliating Super Bowl loss this past season).
Now that fact doesn't ruin the game of football for me. I still appreciate a well played NFL game. But I don't bask in any unearned reflected glory if the hometown team wins nor do I kick dogs or beat up on the wife if the team loses (that stuff actually goes on around here).
I guess I just don't understand the obsession some folks have of their "local" teams.
But the Lakers have been gaining steadily for the past twenty years, with 14 titles now. So this year's Finals has a two-title impact: either the Celtics will widen their lead, or the Lakers will move still closer. That merely adds to the dynamic interest in this series.
Moreover, both teams are well-positioned for returning to the Finals again next year. The Celts play in the weaker East, which they dominated this year, while the Lakers should get back their recuperating young phenom center, Andrew Bynum. Therefore, whoever prevails this year will have an excellent opportunity to repeat in coming years.
In other words, it is not inconceivable that either the Lakers will soon finally catch and perhaps pass the Celtics after forty years, nor that the Celtics might soon widen the gap so that the Lakers need another twenty years to close it, if ever.
Davis is a lumbering forward who has zero chance of even getting near Kobe, much less stopping him, unless you mean to imply that Rivers will unethically use Davis to injure Kobe.
As Greg Popovich, the vanquished Spurs head coach, noted a week ago (and he should know), "No one stops Kobe Bryant."
Therefore, unless Kobe is injured by a Boston thug, depending on stopping him will not enable the Celtics to prevail. If they do win, it will be due to some other strategy.
All I saw was the pre-game and I want to know what is up with Stuart Scott and those beyond-gay eyeglasses?
I saw (nearly) all the Lakers’ games this year and for Kobe’s entire career, and I can tell you with certainty that you are much mistaken to think that the inconsequential Davis will have much influence against Kobe, who will simply rise up over him or slide around him as he does against everyone. If both Bruce Bowen and Tim Duncan couldn’t stop or even slow down Kobe, what possesses you to imagine that fat Davis can? Ray Allen and Paul Pierce will try, but no one stops Kobe.
To be fair, while the league has way too many thugs, there are still teams that do it right.
And the change in the rules has made the defense a lot tougher than in the days of my beloved Showtime Lakers.
Bowen and Duncan are older players, and as such are not physically strong and agile enough to slow down Bryant. Glen Davis—being only a rookie!—will probably have more endurance and strength to force Bryant to do a lot more outside shooting (mind you, Bryant is still frightening from long range).
I say they go all the way and bring back the short shorts.
Not only that but Phil Jackson is tied with Red Auerback for most titles.
That should be Red Auerbach. (We need a self-edit feature!)
Thanks, but your standards are a bit too low, I think. Actually, I write other stuff (hint: see my nick and tagline)—sports is only an amusing hobby.
I hate to say it but the Lakers will probably win in 5 games. They’re just playing alot better than Boston right now.
I do. Americans are extremely immature. Since they can't do much of any consequence in their home life, they look to vicarious thrills from others. People need to just grow up.
Kevin McKale was to enept to win here so he gave it up to his former teamate Danny Ainge to give a try. (KG trade) Reminds me of the Walker trade the Vikings did with the Cowboys.
After Reggie Lewis died (following the death of the very promising Len Bias), Red Auerbach said, "It'll take us 20 years to recover from this".
As always, the redhead knew what he was talking about....
CA....
Glen Davis' role on this team is akin to that of "Jungle Jim" Luscotoff of that fabled 60's team. He's there to stir things up, commit strategic fouls (in the sense that they might bother the opposition), and bang the boards as heavily as possible. Maybe score a few points on a good night.
No one views this kid as a defensive stopper - most likely not even himself. The defensive assignment for Kobe will probably be Paul Pierce rotating with Ray Allen, and James Posey doing it for the bench people.
Not that any of this matters - Kobe will get his points. Unless he scores a bazillion points, "containing" him is not the key to Boston defeating L.A..
We must see what Kendrick Perkins can do with Lamar Odom, first off, and Derek Fisher must be accounted for at all times, and made to pay when he burns them.
The real key, however, is bench vs. bench. This, I believe, will determine the outcome of the series.
San Antone's bench people did rather poorly against LA's, and that's an important reason why they lost. If you argue, San Antone had no answer to Kobe, the logical response is, when he played right, LA had no answer to Tim Duncan. It cuts both ways.
Both teams have good benches, but I think Boston's is a little deeper, a little better, and Doc Rivers uses these guys very, very effectively.
That's why I'm saying Boston in 6.
CA....
Kobe can't win by himself, and the C's have the best TEAM defense in NBA history (just look at the stats from this year).
Not to mention, in both Cleveland and Detroit, they had to beat both the opposing team AND the Refs, and they stomped 'em every time.
Most likely, Celts sweep in 4, but if they rest for 1 game (altogether acceptable, once they realize LA can't beat them), then they win in 5.
Steven A. (for A**HOLE) Smith, Lee Jerk-uh-Koff, and all the other simpering pantload "Kobe"-hypnotized media analysts actually know this is true, buit are under orders from the League Office to make it seem like this is going to be a great series.
It isn't. There is one GREAT TEAM in this Finals, and then there's L.A., too. During player introductions before the game, when they get to Kobe, the announcer should say, "Will the defendant please rise?"
CELTS IN 4 OR 5. 'Nuff said.
;-/
Thug ball. “^/
Gave it up years ago.
Will Worthy shove his teammate into the LA Laker girls again?
That was probably the 1st game of the 1987 year... the Celtics lost the series though... :(
I think the Celtics are going to do the same thing they did with Lebron... let Kobe jack up 3's and defend the paint...
Dude... Celtics aren't thugs... Odom is the thug... he tackled Ray from BEHIND!
This must be the live thread....?
Dream on....
Halftime...Boston LOSING....You were saying????
naw... go to the Celtics forum on realgm.com or celticsblog.com for good conversation...
Game's end...Boston WINS...you were saying????
LA Losers, Bobo the dogface boy.
Celts in 4 or 5. Suck it up.
;-/
He's done that against every team this year...
...except for the Celtics, who have clamped off his inside game for 3 games in a row...
Both regular season games (pre Pao, etc.) and now in the crucial Game 1 of the Finals, Kobe has had no inside game except for the one on the bench where he plays with himself... :-)
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.... it is GOOD to live in Boston if you enjoy being hated by the rest of envious, sour grapes, straw grasping, inevitably losing Sports World.
;-/
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