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.
I don’t know about this. The Celtics are great. The Lakers are great. But that Bulls team could beat a lot of all star teams. They were REALLY good. I love every year in any sport if a team starts like 3-0 they go, “can they go 73-9?” “Can they go 117-45?” etc.
No. The answer will pretty much always be no.
I hit my first shot in a game the other day. I WAS ON PACE TO NOT MISS A SHOT THE ENTIRE GAME!!! But then I did miss a lot cause Im terrible.
Altho I did lead the a team in NBA live to an 82-0 record in the regular season one year. So there’s that.
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.”
Hey buddy it’s me. Man we had some sweet times back at Kansas, didn’t we? How ya been doin’?
Well actually, I kinda know. It’s been all over the TV and everything. Dude you were on TV! And not just like once, LIKE ALL THE TIME! Dude props seriously.
Anyways I been wondering… in case you haven’t heard I’m in Portland right now. Yeah the Jailblazers. Things are kinda looking good for us, but not as good as things look for you. Quick sidenote, remember 1998? Dude we were SICK that year. That was great. Just you and me leadin the way. We work awesome together. Remember how awesome we worked together? It’s too bad I couldn’t handle Antonio Reynolds Dean. Man that guy was UGLY. You’re way better looking, not to sound gay or anything.
So I was wonderin, ol’ pal, if you could put in a good word for me. Ya know, tell KG how I was sick in college and never realized my full potential. I mean I was the guy that caught Jason Williams off the elbow pass. Do you see that pass on highlight reals if I don’t catch it? PROBABLY NOT LOL!! You need the guy to catch it. Tell Danny I could totally play backup center. I’d coach Perk and teach him stuff. Teach him to like, shoot freethrows mildly better or something.
Anyway, the point is, I think you should put in a good word for me because of how we’re pals. Ya know, always lookin out for each other? When we played in Boston together we only had one good player (That’s YOU!! LOLZZZ). Maybe now I could join in on the fun yeah? We could finally fulfill our dream to win a championship together. Remember how we both dreamed that? Can you IMAGINE how awesome it would be to win one? Well, yeah I guess you do. But how bout winning one with your buddy Raef? Remember how fun it was to party together back at Kansas? Remember that time I showed up at your crazy birthday bash and you pretended not to want me there, and then pretended to kick me out? That was HILLARIOUS! I got so shwasted that night!
Anyway, the real reason I’m writing this is to just congratulate you on the win. I don’t like to have ulterior motives. Also remember I’ll always think you’re a really cool person. Again, not being gay or anything.
So that’s really it. Hope I see you soon (in Boston?).
After Kobe made his first three in the first few minutes he turned to a fan and said, “Not tonight.” Not to try to make myself sound smart (I would never do that!!111!!), but I was happy when those first few shots went in. I told one of my friends that this guaranteed we’d see a Kobe that would jack up a bunch of fadeaways and crappy threes thinking, “but wait, I’ve made these before!” It was kinda like what Bill Belichick said about Freddy Mitchell: “He’s terrible. We were happy when he was in the game.” Kobe’s not terrible, but we are happy when he’s in the game if he’s jacking up crap like he did last night.
Just wanna say, I really have NO confidence in the Celtics to win this thing. I’m scared as hell. What’s a new way they could kick me in the stomach? Get a 3-1 Series lead and then blow it. Thanks pessimistic brain.
I’m really enjoying these finals. So far, at least for me, the Finals have been awesomely great greatlyawesomely great to watch. Game 4 was awesome obviously. The Celtics have a good chance to win the series. So don’t get me wrong here, this is awesome. Have I said awesome enough? It’s June and I haven’t dove head first into the Redsox yet. Should they sign Barry Bonds? I don’t even really care yet! (although the answer is yes)
It’s just that, there is a guy missing here.
Antoine Walker was the man. He was the Celtics. He was there before Paul Pierce, and though we all knew Pierce was better, Antoine was the Celtic player. We loved the Walker Wiggle. We loved how he chucked threes like crazy. We loved it because he played like we all wanted to play. He was a chucker who sometimes got hot, and when he did you didn’t forget it (when you’re hot baby, you’re hot. I still remember this call just because how many times it was played over and over again. Look how when he releases it he KNOWS it’s in). He played like a 7th grader who was 6-9. He frequently led the league in threes attempted, and it wasn’t unusual for him to shoot ten to fifteen 3’s in a game. I remember trying to copy Antoine’s quick release shooting form. It messed up my jumper for like 6 months. He was the king of flip shots in the lane, mostly because they weren’t too different from his normal jumpshot. And yeah, we definitely got mad at him. Why would he shoot soooo many bad threes? But he was kinda like us at that time. Just trying to have fun and slowly learning how to play the right way, we hoped. He was the star of the the only Celtic game I’ve been able to attend. He led a comeback charge late in the game against the Trailblazers by hitting the same threes he had missed before, because he always KNEW he was going to make his next shot. He got hot, but he still came up short. It usually ended up like that.
Then it happened. I was sitting in Spanish class. My friend walks in and goes, “The Celtics just traded Antoine.” What? We knew he was being shopped, but at least for me, I never thought he would actually leave. We were quick to ask for corroboration on the story, after all, we weren’t supposed to use the computers in the lab to get sports news. But it was true. An era was over. The news passed through the school like a bad rumor.
We got Antoine back the next year for a few months. It wasn’t the same, but it was definitely kinda cool. Even though he hadn’t been gone too long it seemed like we were connecting with the past. Here’s a good article about this time (it’s Simmons). But then he left again. He won a title with the Heat, which was great, but since then he’s kinda vanished. He’s toiling in Minnesota, with a few other former Celtics (Al Jeff!). Walker only played in 46 games this year and only averaged 8 points a game. Even more shocking, he only averaged about 4 three point attempts per game.
And now that the Celtics are playing games in June for the first time in my lifetime, he’s not here. He deserved to be here for all he put up with over the years. We never really appreciated him until he was gone.
Everyone was complaining about the freethrow discrepancy. Ok, there were a few calls that went against the Lakers in the first half. The Celtics were being favored. Sure. But by the end of the game, the foul discrepancy was only 28-21. This is not a statistically significant number- that is- just by looking at the numbers we cannot be sure the officials really blew the game. Anecdotally, sure, the Lakers shoulda gotten a few calls, maybe Kobe’s second foul was a little cheap etc. Thing is, people are pointing to the free throw discrepancy. You gotta look at the foul discrepancy, and it was only 7. Also, Radmonovich traveled, and Fisher, what’s the word, molested Paul Pierce to get a steal at the end. Doesn’t completely make up for the calls earlier, but I don’t think the Lakers would have won had the game been called 100% correctly.
Lastly, Kobe indicated in his press conference that the Lakers “learned a few things” (or something) from the fourth quarter that they can use “at Staples.” Right. So wait for the Celtics to not care about the game anymore and then make your wide open shots. Go 7-9 or whatever from three point line. Except spread that over the whole game, that’s like 28-36!! The Lakers are gonna win game three by like 60 points!! Seriously Kobe, in order to get all those shots again you will have to fall behind by 24 again. I’ll take that scenario.
I actually didn’t think I’d be able to stick with my original prediction this long. Celts in 4 is holding up.
Posted by swiznit 
Posted by the other shammgod 
Posted by the other shammgod 
he chucked threes like crazy. We loved it because he played like we all wanted to play. He was a chucker who sometimes got hot, and when he did you didn’t forget it (
way, we hoped. He was the star of the the only Celtic game I’ve been able to attend. He led a comeback charge late in the game against the Trailblazers by hitting the same threes he had missed before, because he always KNEW he was going to make his next shot. He got hot, but he still came up short. It usually ended up like that.
the other shammgod
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