Celtics-Magic Game Four: Next Stop, Game Seven

Tonight in Orlando, the Celtics evened their series with the Magic, and in all likelhood, won it. That might sound premature, given that the Magic have led for more of these games than the Celtics, and a last-second 1-point win in a game where you outshoot the opposition by 13 percent from the floor doesn't sound like something to draw a lot of conclusions from. But I've seen the Drama Celtics just enough to know that they aren't losing Game 7 at home, and there's no way the Magic are going to win the next two games. So, you do the math. (You also trust that the Cavs will avoid such drama, especially when they will have a week's worth of extra rest and home court.)

Tonight in the minutes that mattered, Courtney Lee made Eddie House disappear, Brian Scalabrine was helpless, Big Baby Davis continues to be the biggest flopper since Vlade Divac, and the Magic were somehow in the game despite Paul Pierce having the range, and shooting under 40% for their own damn selves. With 8:58 left, Pierce picked up his fifth in a ticky-tack play, and after a make, it was 83-80 and serious worry time for the visitors. But eventually the Magic went back to players like JJ Redick and Anthony Johnson, and that's not exactly a recipe for the Eastern Conference Championship.

With four minutes left, Lee made a nice hesitation jumperr to get things tight, but Rondo was able to draw Howard's fourth foul on an air call. After a single make, it was back to a three point game. Rondo nearly had the steal, but Lee recovered and drained another mid-range shot to cut it to one. Pierce got to the rim but got no call, and Lee missed the go-ahead -- the kind of shot you need to make -- but Davis decided to travel rather than try to shoot over Howard. With 150 seconds left, it was Celtics 91, Magic 90.

After the timeout, Howard missed the Magic's second chance to take the lead. An Allen miss from the corner gave the Magic the ball with two minutes left, and Boston had missed it's last seven shots. Lee's jumped was blocked, and for the third time, the home team didn't take the lead. Pierce missed on good defense from Mickael Pietrus, and Turkoglu's three-pointer clanged out, but not until Rondo failed to control it, giving the Magic possession.

After the timeout, the Magic actually tried some ball movement, and got Howard to the line. His struggles there are well documented, but after two makes, the Magic finally got the lead, with 50 seconds left, 92-91, for the home team's first lead in the second half. It only lasted for 17 seconds, as Davis made a huge bucket. Turkoglu's three pointer missed again, but Pietrus got the board (and was probably fouled), and the Magic called time with 16.7 to go.

Turkoglu has a reputation for fourth quarter greatness, but he's 0 for 5 in this one. Instead of going to Turk Iso, the Magic swing the ball to Lewis, who gets to the line against a Davis foul. Lewis is overpaid and has many holes in his game, but free throw shooting isn't one of them, and he makes both to give the home team the 94-93 lead with 11.3 seconds left.

The de riguer timeout -- doesn't Doc Rivers know that the only way to get Phil Jackson's reputation is to not call timeouts? -- gave us the opportunity to see Ray Allen's clutch bio, which to be fair, is extensive. Rondo feeds Pierce, who gets it to Davis, and Big Baby casually drains a line-drive jumper from 21 feet to win it. Yeesh. You can't blame the Magic too much for guarding Rondo, Pierce and Allen and losing to Davis from distance. But had they made any of those shots in the last three minutes, they might have had the margin for error to avoid a tied series on a last-second make. But then again, what should you expect from a team whose arena is named after Amway?

As for the men from Massachusetts, I'm clearly not a Celtics fan, but Lord, they do deliver the drama. We'll have three more games from them until it stops.

The KG Asterick, Or Reason #8,234 Why The World Loves Boston Injuries

Oh, the things I do for you, dear reader. It's taking years off my life, this exposure to such unabashed and unblinking douche- baggery. It's also speaks to the workday's length and my interest in cultivating a low level of rage to help me get through it.

Which is all a roundabout way of getting to the point of yet another Bill "Bad Tooth" Simmons podcast on the World Wide Lemur page, in which we learn that if Kevin Garnett can't play in this playoff, as head coach Doc Rivers has indicated, it means that the eventual non-Celtic champion will own a tainted title.

You know, with an asterisk.

First, let's go into the nature of the Asterisk in the first place. There is, really, no defense for it on the Jerk Meter. If you go here, you're a jerk, plain and simple; you have to ruin someone else's happiness to have your own. Not to put to fine a point on it, but you make decent people spit. (And yes, that goes for the father of the Asterisk Title, the wildly overrated Phil Jackson. But that's a whole other kettle of hate.)

Let's move beyond the odiousness of the tactic and talk about the actual merits of how wildly sad, unfortunate and unexpected it was to lose a big man with over 1,000 NBA games on his odometer. The simple fact of the matter is that the devil's bargain that the Celtics made for last year's title has already paid off, and isn't likely to be paid again. When you build a team around three ticking time bombs of high mileage second banana superstars, this is what you get. Comfort yourself in your championship, knowing that most teams that make this dice roll come up craps on every pass.

In your best possible year, the injuries are timed to stagger out in the regular season and allow you to make a deep run, a la the Spurs going every-other year (prior to this year's Manu-ectomy, of course). When the stars don't align, you lose. Please, at the very least, have the self-respect that the Allmighty gave to a leech and accept this about yourselves, OK?

But wait, there's more. And I won't even get into the massive turd that Simmy Boy dropped in another sock-ruining podcast as to why the A's are the worst team to ever win 2 out of 3 at home against his Red Sox, or how awful A's Fan is to not come out to support their team in an old stadium in bad weather, with the knowledge that the person in the seat next to them is very likely to be Red Sox Fan. Anyhoo...

You see, we also get to learn from the master that Good Cleveland Fan *hates* that Garnett won't be able to go this time around. Only Bad Cleveland Fan is happy to have ducked the bigger baby. (What, I'm just giving props to Glen "Big Baby" Davis. Shame on you for seeing more into that, Celtics Fan.)

By the way, I'm still pretty much expecting Garnett to arise from Paul Pierce's Wheelchair of Miracles and throw down double-doubles while the Bad Tooth pleasures himself for a few thousand words. Meanwhile, my Sixers will lose in five against a Magic team that will get swept in the second round, with three of those games being tossed away in the last minute. In other news, I've just learned that in a past life I was one of those camp guards that enjoyed their work in eastern Europe in the low '40s. I'd feel bad about that, but I'm holding out hope that in Simmy Boy's past life, he was in my care, which would make all of this even. Moving on.

You see, Good Cleveland Fan doesn't want to have their possible championship cheapened by the Asterisk That Only Boston Fan Can See. Good Cleveland Fan wants to earn their first professional championship since the pre-Super Bowl Browns the *right* way, which is to say, while giving Boston Fan and his half dozen or so parades in this decade every possible chance. Good Cleveland Fan has simply shrugged off the close calls that the Jose Mesa Indians, Bernie Kosar Browns, LeBron's own Finals sweep moment, and the 40-plus years of being one of America's most tortured sports cities to think about how bad Boston Fan must be feeling about KG. Only Bad Cleveland Fan sees this news and thinks, happily, that the Lord may be finally setting up the breaks their way.

No, I'm not making this up. I don't even think the Bad Tooth was doing this as one of his periodic tired wrestling heel bits, either. It's just the way they are -- utterly freaking clueless as to how anyone on the other side of a sports argument might see things, or how his Boston Uber Alles apologies and hopes makes him an all-day tool.

Here's a small clue from the rest of the nation, on the off chance that any Boston Fan has gotten this far into the post... when Tom Brady got hurt last year, it was the best day of the NFL season for a large percentage of the NFL fan base, because it made you that sad. And the rest of us only enjoys your presence when you are that sad.

When Brett Favre cemented his legacy as the worst Last Season In The Wrong Laundry Guy Ever by keeping your Pats out of the dance, that was also just what we wanted for Christmas, preferably with one of those stocking-stuffer online petitions from you people to try to get the rules changed after the fact. Celtic Elimination Day, assuming that it arrives, will be one of the happiest days in the NBA calendar for everyone who doesn't root for your team. And there are more of us than there are of you.

So, to sum up:

You are hated.

Not envied.

Hated.

Not special.

Hated.

Not unique.

Hated.

I'm saying this in really short sentences so that you understand it.

Even if all of your teams go into the tank at once for the rest of my lifetime, with the Celtics being the best candidate to circle the drain given how likely it is that Ray Allen will soon succumb to the brittleness that kills off every aging jump shooter, no one will ever feel sorry for you again.

In any matchup with even the most odious of opponents (i.e., the Yankees), the rest of the world will see you as equally distasteful. Especially for people who have, you know, paid attention to baseball in the last decade or so. (This, by the way, is my explanation for why Oriole Fan and site contributor Dirty Davey still has his reflexive Anyone But The Yankees thing going on.)

Which, of course, you will completely ignore, given that your heads are so far up your Asterisks, it's a wonder that you can watch the games at all.

Oh, and if you want to go down the path of how Simmy Boy doesn't speak for you? Um, no.

Own him, like all of the other mewling celebrities in your fan base.

Own him, like your Nixonian football coach and your riverdancing closer, your roll out the ball commuting basketball coach and your increasingly lily-white baseball team and fan base.

Own him, along with the simple and persistent fact that PEOPLE HATE YOU BECAUSE THEY SHOULD.

And in other Site News, this is Post #2,000.

Apropos, don't you think?

Vin and Tonic

H/t Deadspin for finding the You Been Blinded story... Vin and Tonic is having his restaurant foreclosed, which is also going to put his parents on the hook for 400 large.

Now, I don't much care what happens to Baker, and I'm sure that his folks have had more than a few opportunities to squirrel away some cash over the years. According to his page on Baseball Reference, his lifetime salary data gets you to over $112 million; if you someone go broke on that, including five straight years of going from $10.1 to $13.5 million (and yes, Isiah Thomas *did* bring him to New York!)... well, far be it from me to shed a tear for him.

But that's exactly the point to make here. The true Vinsanity has now been to six different teams, and the Celtics and Rockets have even brought him back more than once. He hasn't made an All-Star Game since he was 26; that was a decade ago. He hasn't broken ten points a game since 2003-04 with the Celtics.

He's been a pretty terrible player for a long time now, and yet, he still keeps getting work. I have no idea how, and you probably don't either, other than maybe being really impressed by his agent.

If I were running an NBA team, Vin Baker would be the last guy I'd want on my roster, and that's even with the idea that the only wat you bring him in at all is if your previous half dozen big men have hit the shelf. It's an even money bet as to who the strike hit worse -- him or Shawn Kemp.

Oh, and then there's this. He seems to like not only being drunk, but driving that way as well. Is the appeal of having Eddie Griffin II on your roster really worth it?

Pyrrhic Celtics

Last night in the Association saw the hometown Celtics improve their record to 34-7 with a one-point win over the... Timberwolves? And here's the lead from the AP:

The players at the end of the Boston bench kept looking over their shoulders to the tunnel to see if Kevin Garnett was coming back out of the locker room.

They didn't need to worry.

"I wasn't going to do anything that would to jeopardize my future," Garnett said after his last-second steal helped the Boston Celtics beat the Minnesota Timberwolves 87-86 on Friday night. "But my philosophy has always been that if I can play, if I can run, if I can move, if I can blink, if I can wake up in the morning, I'm going to play."

It was just an abdominal strain, and not really any issue for Garnett to recover from. But take a look at the minutes that the Celtics starters logged -- Pierce 42:15, Allen 40:25. For the 7-35 Wolves?

The next best record in the East? Detroit, at 31-13. And yet, here are the Celtics and Doc Rivers, at the halfway mark of the season, still managing minutes as if they had a shot at the all-time win mark, or as if they were scrambling for the 8th seed. For the year, Pierce and Allen are 18th and 19th in the entire NBA in minutes per game.

There are only three teams that put two of their players on the floor more than the Celtics. They are the Wiz (Butler and Jamison), who are down Arenas and trying to stay afloat, the Warriors (Davis and Jackson), an intriguing also-ran in the West who need home court to do anything in the playoffs, and the Magic (Howard and Lewis), who at least are burning with young gas.

Neither of those duos have the miles of Pierce and Allen, and of course, none of them are on teams with the kind of margin of error that the Celtics' fast start have given them.

You have to go to the 52nd and 57th ranked players by minutes per game, which would be Rip Hamilton and Tony Parker, to find a Piston or Spur. And in other news, the Celtics are 5-4 in their last 9 games, and, um, beat the T-Wolves by a freaking point. At home. Next stop: totally shocking injuries!

"We're All Embarrassed"

That's the money quote from Knicks Coach GM Architect Of Mass Destruction Isiah Thomas. Tonight on the much more entertaining than the game post-game show on TNT, Charles Barkley, in referring to the Knicks in their breathtaking 104-59 loss to the Celtics, started his analysis with, "The problem with the Washington Generals is..."

The late game in the doubleheader were the disappointing Nuggets sleeping their way through the second half against the suddenly rejuvenated Lakers, in what eventually wound up being a 25-point loss. As we came back from commercial, Chuck wasn't on the set, then came in halfway through the open, saying, "If I have to watch these games again, I want a raise. Hazard pay."

Once again, the Round Mound of Rebound speaks a lot of truth. The score at the end of three quarters tonight in Boston -- Celtics 82, Knicks 41. Here is how gutless the Knicks were: they shot 30% from the floor and missed 53 shots. Number of offensive rebounds: seven. Over half of this game was spent with the Celtics having a 20-point lead, the Knicks could not buy a bucket, and yet -- no offensive rebounds. Gut. Less.

To quote Bob Dylan, can *this* really be the end? TBS showed a clip of Isiah Thomas saying that he "did not know where this game came from." Um, Isiah? It came from you assembling a Frankenstein team that can't play defense, has no heart, and does not care about anything but their own numbers. It brewed together in an environment of paranoia, harrassment, and utter incompetence. And it was displayed on national television, for the world to see.

Knicks-Bucks tomorrow night. If I had to bet... I think they come out and beat the Bucks, because Isiah Thomas Can Not Be Killed, Can Not Be Stopped, And Can Not Be Fired.

But you've got to hand it to the man. By the time he's done, no one will remember that he once played basketball. They will only remember this. The Knicks are just that special.

Celtics Courting Reggie

According to ESPN.com the Boston Celtics have reached out to Reggie Miller about a comeback.

Check out the desperation here.

Memo To Celtics Fan

Garnett isn't coming.

Jermaine O'Neal said no, too.

You don't have enough to get Kobe, and he doesn't want to be there, either.

Shawn Marion isn't coming through the door. (On the bright side, neither is Rick Pitino.)

Your team is anchored by two aging wing players, a big man who hasn't put up numbers outside of a garbage time tank season, and a bench that makes my Sixers look... comparable.

The most two important positions on the floor -- center and point guard -- are manned by foul and turnover-prone players with absolutely no offensive game (Perkins and Rondo).

Your coach could not find his ass with both hands and a map. Your GM hired your coach.

You aren't relevant now, you won't be relevant later, and your future looks worse than the Knicks.

So enjoy the latest KG rumors. Like every other deluded franchise and fan base, the straws that you grab at will always seem more plausible in the off-season.

On the plus side, he alredy knows how to deal with big people who hate him

Yes Nation, it's the Tim Donaghy / NBA Ref Fixing Games post. Let's get to it, shall we?

For a league that already had major issues from

1) SunsGate (we like to throw this out there to get out Spurs readers to angry up)

2) the NBA Finals that always feels like the fourth act of a three act play

3) a season where half of the Leastern Conference went in the tank (we like to throw this out there to get our Celtics readers to angry up)

4) a WWE-level screw job at the Draft that just coincidentally sent the top picks to teams that didn't tank (Your tears taste so good, Celtic fans)

5) a regular season that actively spit in the face of anyone trying to play fantasy sports...

Well, let's just say that a bookie-mad ref who JUST COINCIDENTALLY led the league in technical fouls called *really* isn't helping matters.

As always, it's not the initial scandal that throws you off the cliff -- it's the long-term damage to credibility. Historically, if you heard someone crying about the ref, you could commiserate over the bad luck, or just shrug and point to the scoreboard as the ultimate arbiter of good and less good.

Now, the sour grapes fan has a whole bag of additional conspiracy to go to... and the NBA bashing crowd, who are never lonely, get an unlimited source of ammo.

Just to make the regular readers of this blog do a spit-take, I'm going to be positive about this. Maybe this is just the crisis that the NBA really needs to get out of its comfortable funk. After all, global awareness continues to rise, television networks keep ponying up the big bucks for games, and while piss-poor NBA Finals ratings don't really make anyone happy, it's clearly not doing enough damage to make the powers that be do something sensible.

What's sensible? The immediate implementation of

1) Reseeding playoff teams to create a more satisfying playoff season

2) Greater quality control of referees, including direct and continuous monitoring of bank statements.

Yes, this is a serious violation of a person's privacy and not foolproof -- but we're talking the completely integrity of the league being at stake. Not keeping a better eye on these people is like running a casino without cameras.

3) Direct and obvious punitive measures against tanking teams.

You're telling me that Joe Smith signing an underhanded contract with the T-Wolves was worth the loss of five number one picks... but the Celtics intentionally trying to lose games in the second half of last season is kosher. Giving Seabass Telfair minutes at any time, to my eyes, is proof that the game is in the bag.

4) Direct and obvious punitive measures against tanking players.

You want to stop the phenomenon of the skilled veteran player with the guaranteed contract that forces a ruinous trade away from his current bad situation to a place with more sun, less taxes and a better chance of getting to the playoffs? Fine him. Suspend him. Dock his pay. Go to war with the union if you have to (trust me, after the lockout year, you're really not going to lose), but get the game back in the hands of organizations, not contractors.

5) Stop coddling China.

The Chinese Government and/or team doesn't want Yi to stiff it up in Milwaukee? Shut down satellite transmissions to the country. Let them take back Yao Ming if they must -- because they won't want to put the toothpaste back in that tube, and they'll cave on Yi, too.

Do all of this, and you still won't have a golden age of the NBA -- because Stern's devil's bargain with Jordan, and the Cult of One over the Cult of Teams that that age created, has never really stopped, and team sports don't work in the long term over being built on individual players. (This, by the way, is how I know David Beckham will do nothing to make US soccer much better. That, and the fact that unless you or your kid is playing it, you probably don't give a crap about it.)

But it will help stop the bleeding, and give people something else to talk about, other than the Black Sox parallels. Worse yet for the NBA, the league does not have a roaring economy and a Babe Ruth-esque player to bring it out of the mess. (No, not even Bassy Telfair.)

Be Afraid Celtics Fans

It's draft day and Danny Ainge is in charge. The guy in the middle of the photo above is the brains of this operation.

Latest rumor has the Sonics offering Ray Allen to the Celtics for Theo Ratliff and the #5 pick. Even Ainge is smart enough to make that deal if it is indeed legit.

FTT Can Not Stop Touching The Rotting Tooth That Is Bill Simmons

Shorter Simmons, just now:

Everyone feel sorry for me and my team, because we didn't win the lottery, and we're really, really, really unlucky.

* * * * *

Actual Simmons (and after this, I'm taking this car straight to Rant Country):

Everyone believes Celtics fans get a free pass with this stuff because we won 16 titles in 30 years. Actually, it's the opposite. Long-suffering fans of perennial losers don't know what they're missing. After all, how would they know? You can't miss steak if you've never eaten steak, right?

This, in a nutshell, is why the *WORLD* hates the Red Sox even more than the Yankees right now (and for that matter, the Patriots more than the Colts) -- you won your World Series, and you are *still* crying for Lovable Underdog Status.

It's also why no one -- NO ONE -- feels bad that the Celtics are Clippers East now.

You know who would trade their Sports Misery with Boston's in a freaking heartbeat? Just about every town in America. You get a great old baseball park. You get the most successful franchise in NBA history. You get a championship - MULTIPLE - in this century, in two sports. You get a fan base that fills the seats and cares all the time, and if you move away from there, you can always find a bar filled with them.

You want a miserable sports fan experience? Settle back with some Kansas City Royal action, six months in a funeral home. Grab a paper bag and join the suicide watch in Detroit Lion Land. Suck on the poisoned crack pipe that has a Philadelphia 76er logo on it. My team has traded the best players in franchise history away so much, Julius Erving checks the newspaper every day, just to make sure it still isn't going to happen to him, too.

Believe it or not, We Poor Peons Who Rarely Eat Steak like it, too. The Royals fans remember 1985 like it's a child lost in a war. Lions fans close their eyes and think of Barry Sanders. In Philadelphia, we can still see Doc rising over Michael Cooper.

It's the way sports is for everyone. Or, at least, everyone but you, you spoiled child, you insufferable douche bag, you puling twerp. (Boy, it's hard to keep this under the Disney filter.)

Your tears are like sweet wine. Please cry some more for us. Please. Or, failing that, GROW THE HELL UP.

And if you don't believe me, spin around the sports blogosphere and check out the reactions of everyone but you and your boyfriends. It's a freaking national holiday out here.

Take A Dive. You Get Five.

And that’s how it ended up for the Boston Flopping Celtics. As I wrote yesterday, they tanked their way to the second worst record in the NBA in hopes of securing the first or second pick in the draft. The worst pick they could end up with was the 5th pick. And that is exactly what they got.

Bill Simmons blogged today about his definition of karma, the Celtics “bad luck” and why they were due. How does a team who purposely tries to lose games have this sense of entitlement of deserving the top pick? And I’ll save you some time reading his next blog about how unbearable it is, how even his buddy Hench couldn’t cheer him up and why the number 5 pick isn’t that bad. (You can look forward to 6 weeks of why Yi Jianlian is more polished than Greg Oden or how Mike Conley is the best PG coming out of the draft since AI)

Reading the Celtics message boards, their fans share this same sentiment. A lot of “It’s not fair, we had the second worst record. We deserve at least the second pick.” I think the Celtics got exactly what they deserved – you don’t play hard and try to win, get in the back of the line.

The next shoe to drop is the inevitable “Stern rigged this lottery to punish the Celtics.” I’m actually going to encourage the spreading of this conspiracy theory. I like the idea of Stern dropping the hammer on a team that doesn’t have the moral integrity to play hard. Why should an organization that has made terrible moves be rewarded for trying to take the easy way out to rebuild?

Danny Ainge is currently on step 1 of the 5 steps of grieving – DENIAL. "We've been saying all along that we think this is a good draft, and it's more than a two-player draft," Ainge said just moments after the results were revealed on ESPN. "I still believe that we're going to get a player who has a chance to be an All-Star caliber player." Step 2 is anger. I’m sure that came as soon as the reporters had left the room.

This is an organization in disarray. From the GM to the coach to even the marketing department. Need proof? Check out the photo at the top of this post. This came directly from the homepage of the Boston Celtics. It shows the worst possible outcome of tonight’s draft for them – the 5th pick. And right below the picture of the number 5 ball is a button to get season tickets. Now you tell me the Celtics didn’t get exactly what they deserved.

Thank you NBA for an outstanding evening.