Cavs-Celtics Game Five: In Which I Lose The Will To Live

One of my most formative moments as a sports fan was when my Sixers, led by Julius Erving near the height of his powers, took a 3-1 lead against the Celtics in a playoff series. This was in the 70s, pre-Bird-McHale-Parish, when I hadn't gotten used to the idea that Boston was always going to win (I had not been aware of basketball before the Doctor, and no one in my family was big on hoops). A 3-1 lead seemed huge. All the stories in the newspaper were how teams never came back from that. The area was filled with joy and good weather and happiness, since any defeat of the Celtics was to be celebrated.

And then, of course, the Celtics came back and won three straight nailbiters, and my boyhood heart was crushed, just like every other Philadelphia playoff experience.

In the three-plus decades since, Boston has continued its historical role of winning much more than they have lost, and generally making the NBA playoffs a depressing experience. With the occasional burst of competence and/or spectacular player, my Sixers have had a better run than some, but certainly not the C's.

And this year, as my laundry was absolutely unwatchable, the only consolation that I was able to take was that the bill for the piper had come due, and that Boston's window had slammed shut, cursed by bad personnel decisions, way too many miles on the knees, and coaching that had clearly lost the locker room, wasn't going to much further than they would. The Cavaliers, the best team in the Association this year with the best regular season player that I've seen in my life, would turn them into hamburger.

And then they played the games. And it turned out that the Cavs were paper tigers, the Celtics were playing possum for six months, and Lucy pulled the football away again.

And it really doesn't matter if the C's win another series after this one -- and rest assured, they won this series tonight, with their second straight evisceration on the Cavs' home floor, because the James that can turn this around doesn't seem to be around anymore. Whether it's the elbow or just a career-long playoff choke routine doesn't really matter. When the season was on the brink tonight, Paul Pierce, who hasn't been worth a damn all series long, was a lot better than he was.

Because what the Celtics have managed to do in is punch James' ticket out of town, destroy any notion that he's really that special of a player, eradicate what was a relentlessly watchable team, and ensure that the Eastern Conference Finals will involve rooting either for these reprobates or the relentlessly awful Stan van Gundy / Vince Carter Magic, and a Finals series in which either of those teams loses to the Lakers.

I'm so goddamned tired of this laundry, so weary of Yet Another Celtics-Lakers series, yet another chapter in the saga of pick the equal of two evils, yet another excuse for Laker Fan and Celtic Fan to tell me how wonderful it is to be them. This is what it must have been like to be a non New York baseball fan in the '50s, when MLB was dying in every market but the one where all of the media was, and attendance declined league-wide while locals talked of a Golden Age.

It's not even that the Celtics won. Hell, the last three-plus decades have made me used to that. It's just the way in which they've won, with the Cavs resorting to Hack A Perkins while down 20 with five minutes left, and the sense that if you don't root for the C's, you just get to have your nose rubbed in it, year after year after year. And their opponents just quit and roll over and die. I just don't get it.

I love hoop. But if there were a worse resolution to the season, I couldn't have ever written it. You can find the details of this one at some other site, and I'm sure that I'll be coming back to this at some point, probably once I talk myself back into having any hope for the Suns, or the pure ratings meltdown that would be Suns-Magic...

Well, OK. But how many times does this have to end terribly, for you to wonder why it needs to be watched at all?