Magic trick Green; headlines reign supreme

I’ve been a bad sports fan this past week. The NBA and NHL are playing thrilling playoffs, baseball is just starting to heat up, and college lacrosse playoffs are on TV, yet I’ve probably only watched an hour of sports in the past seven days. Even ESPN Classic, my favorite boredom buster, has received little love from me.

I don’t have any substantial input to make right now, but saying nothing this morning would be a shame, considering the Celtics were eliminated last night, so I’ll just discuss one fringe benefit of the game last night: reading a cornucopia of ridiculous headlines from the clever to the painful. When you have a reigning champion, big-time program, lose to a team named The Magic, headline-smiths around the world get excited.  Here are a few column and article headlines:

• Celtics disappear
• Cruel trick
• Turkoglu reappears just in time for Magic
• Green done in by lanky point forward
• Helpless against this firing squad
• Alpha-Bits and empty tanks
• Stars not aligned for C’s this time around
• No. 18 will have to wait
• Orlando Magic make history with rout of Boston Celtics
• In game 7, Celtics run out of Magic
• Van Gundy, Magic make naysayers disappear
• Magic show: C’s run finished
• Hounded by Magic defense, Pierce is unable to deliver
• Celtics fall for Magic tricks
• Two of Big Three not enough
• Superman Dwight Howard comes to Magic’s rescue
• Allen gave it his best shot

But, once I saw the Yahoo Sports headline, I knew we had a winner:

• Magic to appear at King’s court

Congrats, Yahoo! Your prize is being an increasingly irrelevant Internet corporation.

Forrest Gump 2.0

Forrest Gump began his run across the country after Jenny left him. again. This run included Forrest coining the happy smiley face t-shirt idea, as well as the classic phrase, “shit happens”. George Martin has made his own trip across the country in a fund raising effort for 9/11 rescue workers. This is a great, great story for the NFL in light of all of personal conduct troubles it’s faced over the past couple of years. Martin is a former defensive end for the New York Giants and he walked over 3,000 miles and raised 2 million dollars to address the respiratory problems of 9/11 rescue workers. Here’s the story on espn, Ex-Giant DE Martin finishes 3,000-mile walk for 9/11 charity. Martin walked an average of 22 and half miles a day – that’s pretty sick. Awesome job by Martin for promoting awareness of this important issue.

Also, Rachel Nichols interviewed KG and Paul Pierce about their championship experiences. Pretty cool interview with some funny moments from KG and Pierce. Nice closing line too, with KG saying “every great movie needs a sequel.”

A Pistons-Spurs Final?

Now, I’m not trying to be biased here, but I took some issue with this recent article that says the NBA should wish for a Spurs-Pistons final.

Forgive me, citizens of Easily Entertained, Need-Flash-To-Appreciate Nation for this blasphemous proposal:

Let’s root for another edition of Pistons versus Spurs in the NBA Finals!

(Trying to block out the sound of 260 million people collectively groaning.)

You got that right. Although, lucky for you, I am sufficiently interested in the NBA to see what kind of crap you’re going to pull out next.

Full disclosure: As a Detroiter, I would love to see the Pistons in the Finals for the sixth time in my lifetime.

Ok, that accounts for the Pistons. But how do we explain the Spurs?

But this isn’t about me. This is about the league’s credibility.

Yes, because the NBA would be SO much more credible if it had another NBA finals that no one watched or paid attention to.

The biggest NBA conspiracy theory going right now is that the league is trying to make a Boston-L.A. Finals happen, because it would mean insane television ratings and a return to the time when the dominance of those two franchises overshadowed everything else in sports.

Well, Boston has gotten some pretty questionable calls against it – see game 6 against the Cavs – and they just lost Game 2 to Detroit when it probably would’ve been pretty easy for the refs to swing that in Boston’s favor given how close the margin was at the end. So I’m not sure if the league is trying to get Boston to the finals.

I’m going to save my judgement on the Lakers’ officiating because I’m afraid it’d be inevitably biased.

If this were any other NBA season, the insinuation that the league was somehow working to orchestrate the return of the Lakers-Celtics rivalry would be considered a real reach — but not when the Tim Donaghy betting scandal is still looming.

But if it’s Pistons-Spurs, the NBA Finals will be conspiracy-free.

Forgive me, but as long as there are fans of a team, there will ALWAYS be conspiracy theories about how a game is reffed. Frankly, any time a team has homecourt advantage, they get calls, or no-calls, they probably should not get. (see game 5 lakers-jazz no-call with gasol in closing minutes) And since both of these teams entered these series AS THE HIGHER SEED – how is it a conspiracy if they win? The Lakers are toying with the Spurs and it has nothing to do with the refs. Kobe has been running circles around the Spurs D and Poppovich has no answer for the triangle. And Boston beat Detroit twice in three tries this season, so why shouldn’t they win the majority of games in the playoffs?

Unlike the Lakers and Celtics, the Pistons and Spurs didn’t get to the conference finals with the help of questionable blockbuster deals.

Yes, because the Spurs got Tim Duncan completely legitimately by tanking the ’97 season when David Robinson “rested” for the second half of the year. And can we please stop talking about the Garnett and Gasol deals? Kevin Garnett isn’t the only piece of this puzzle. What about the individual improvement of Kendrick Perkins, Leon Powe and Rajon Rondo, the drafting of Glen Davis this year and the trade for Ray Allen? I’d even argue that Paul Pierce is the MVP of that team and they don’t win unless the supporting cast gets it done – see game 2.

With regards to the Lakers, Andrew Bynum was playing spectacularly before he went down and the Lakers could have been this good next year when he came back if they hadn’t gotten Gasol now. Let’s not forget that Kobe Bryant is playing the best ball of his career, they resigned Derek Fisher to provide another solid floor leader, Lamar Odom’s consistency in the playoffs has been unreal, the “Bench Mob” of Sasha/Turiaf/Walton/Farmar has improved drastically this season, and the midseason trade for Ariza added a valuable defensive stopper. That’s a lot of other personnel movement that has accounted for L.A.’s success.

If you complain you’re sick of seeing NBA teams that don’t play hard, root for Pistons-Spurs.

I don’t think anyone has the intensity of Kevin Garnett. And Kobe especially REFUSES to let his teams lose. Besides, these youngins on LA and Boston play with tremendous passion – just look at how crazy Big Baby and Ronny Turiaf get during games.

If you love teams that win because of their commitment to team basketball, root for Pistons-Spurs.

The Lakers are the best passing team in the NBA and they win because EVERYONE gets involved. And the Celtics are friggin’ UBUNTU!

If you’re sick of seeing basketball dominated by And-1 wannabes, root for Pistons-Spurs.

Don’t even try to call the Black Mamba an “And-1 wannabe”. The boy is a beast. These two teams both have great role players like James Posey, Derek Fisher, P.J. Brown, and Lamar Odom – all of whom fill a niche on their respective teams without being super flashy.

Pistons-Spurs — that’s what we all should be dying to see.

I actually think I might die if I see it.