Friday, April 17, 2009

Well, all right then

An especially touching essays today from Bill Simmons.

This is written in the shadow of Celtic Kevin Garnett being gone for the season. I grew up a Celtic fan and Yankee fan, and no, I'm not a frontrunner, I grabbed onto both those teams in the earlyt seventies, in the shadow of their twin Dark Ages. The only winning team I latched onto was the Bruins, this when the Boston Bruins ruled Boston over the Celtics, Red Sox, and god forgive, the Patriots.

Anyway, along the whole "oft thought, but ne'er so well expressed" deal, I thought back to November, when the Celtics were being roasted for letting James Posey go, the thought being Posey might be the difference between beating or losing to Cleveland, and hence having a rematch with LA in the finals. Now it turns out that Posey would have made no difference at all, because without Garnett there would be no title. So . . . Simmons writes:

My dad and I had the same conversation five times in the past month, as it became clearer and clearer that Garnett was more injured than the team was saying, and we had it again today: Was one title (and a memorable season) worth giving up Al Jefferson, a few first-rounders and Ratliff's expiring deal that maybe could have been used to trump the Lakers for Pau Gasol? Yes. Yes it was. The goal is to win the title. We won a title. I would do it again. There is no statistic to capture the effect Garnett had on the rest of these guys; they played with a collective heart that reminds me of only one other Celtics team.

Then Simmons writes something close to my heart:

The best thing about winning an NBA title is defending it. My favorite Celtics team ever was the 1986-87 group. They lost Lenny Bias 48 hours after drafting him. They lost Bill Walton and Scott Wedman for basically the entire season. Kevin McHale injured his foot near the end of the regular season, played on it and broke it (and gamely kept playing). Dennis Johnson, Danny Ainge and Robert Parish were limping around on sprained ankles by the second round. Only Larry Bird was healthy -- he ended up averaging an inconceivable 44.1 minutes in 23 playoff games. In the second round, they fended off a really good Bucks team, winning Game 7 even though they trailed by 10 with six minutes to go. In the Eastern finals, they held off a hungry Pistons team by winning two of the greatest games in the history of the Garden: Game 5 (Bird's famous steal from Isiah) and Game 7 (an unforgettable display of heart and will, with a little luck thrown in: the Dantley/Microwave collision). In the Finals, they came within Magic's baby sky hook and Bird's miracle 3-pointer missing by a sliver of tying the series at 2-2 against one of the five best basketball teams ever. When they got bounced in Game 6, every Celtics fan said to themselves, "I cannot ask for anything more than I just got."

Now that, my friends, is a title defense.


Man after my own heart.

Oh, yeah, nice of the Yankees to win today, Jeter with the winning home run, the bullpen saving Joba. Forget what I wrote.

1 comment:

SunDevilJoe said...

Yes, it is time to talk about the NBA. Of course everyone is anticipating and hoping for the LeBron/Kobe matchup. But, although the Garnett loss certainly hurts, never count out the Celtics especially with Pierce and Rondo.

Yes, it was nice of the Yankees to get a little payback today. However, I need to be paying closer attention to the schedule and not assume a Friday game will be at night. I was able to catch the last 2 innings.