An embarrassment of riches

With about seven minutes left in the second quarter of last night's OUTSTANDING game 6 performance by the Celtics, two things happened:

1. James Posey hit a three-pointer from the corner, doubling the Celtics' lead from 3 to 6 points. This was the equivalent of an infected monkey breaking out of the lab. After that, it was just a bloodbath - a slaughter of epic proportions. It couldn't be stopped. Not by Kobe, not by Jack Nicholson, not by the National Guard, not by Big John Studd and King Kong Bundy. You could only sit back and watch the mayhem break loose.

2. My dog - possibly sensing the imminent disaster for Lakers fans (the same way animals are said to sense earthquakes before they occur), or possibly sensing that the moon was full (or looked it, to my amateur astronomer eyes) - started freaking out and demanded to go for a walk. If there was ever a chance that he would have stood on his hind legs, tapped me on the shoulder, and spoke in English to tell me he needed to go out NOW, this would have been the time.

I grabbed my kinda-broken Sirius Stiletto unit with hopes of listening to the game while I walked him, but it was all for naught. The battery pack wouldn't fasten to the unit securely, so it kept "resetting" (which takes about 90 seconds at a time).

And when it DID plug in correctly, I didn't get great reception (under the trees, blocked by buildings).

And when I DID get reception, only the left ear got sound - the right side of the stereo reception doesn't work.

The thing works like a charm when it's plugged into its dock, but try to walk around with it and it's a disaster. I have to get a new one, eventually.

To top it all off, crazy dog - who couldn't wait to get outside and run to every bush he could find - would, upon arrive to said bushes, take his sweet time and smell them all for what seemed like an eternity. I know that you're supposed to take time to stop and smell the roses, but not during what could be the concluding game of a championship series. Clearly, when we adopted Joey, we should have been told that he didn't understand the protocol of professional sports. It might have been a dealbreaker.

So anyway, when I left, the C's had a nine point lead. When I got back, halftime was ending and they were up by 23. Thank goodness for DVRs.

Random thoughts on the game:

It's been pointed out before, but judge for yourself - do a Google image search for "Sam Cassell". Your first page of results will show references to a generic alien, to E.T., and to Gollum. The dude's kinda weird looking. (Not that it matters, of course. I'm not going to win any beauty contests either.) Conversely, Ray Allen has the most perfectly shaped head I think I've ever seen. (When your team is up by 30+ points, you tend to notice unusual things.)

I dug David Stern and Stuart Scott getting booed by the Garden crowd at the end of the game. It just seems right. (Though in fairness, Scott's not a bad guy - his style is just grating, I suppose.) I can only imagine how loud it would have been if Stephen A. Smith had been introduced during the ceremony. It would have been the same sound you'd hear if Rush Limbaugh was asked to speak in front of the crowd in Denver the night Barack Obama (the next President of the United States, by the way) is officially nominated as the Democrats' candidate. (Again, I know it's just an issue of style and personal preference, but the guy's just unwatchable.)

I can't prove it, because I didn't post it two weeks ago, though I should have. But I swear to you - Nicole is my witness - I told her before the series started that the Celtics would specifically win the first two, the middle game in LA, and game 6. I *do* have written proof that I said C's in 6, however.

I knew it would never happen, but I thought it would have been great to have whoever plays the music over the PA at the Garden play Pavement's "Cut Your Hair" whenever Gasol or Vujacic was about to take free throws.

In the bigger picture, when we're all old, sitting in our rocking chairs and telling stories to our grandkids, THESE are the years we'll be talking about.

It's hard to have a proper perspective when you're still knee deep in everything. It's foolish to assume and anticipate anything in sport, championships especially, but at this point, it's almost equally foolish to assume that the ride is over, too.

The veterans, like Garnett, Pierce, Beckett, Ramirez, Brady and Moss still have plenty of good years left. The "kids", like Rondo, Big Baby Davis, Ellsbury, Lester, Masterson, et al. haven't even gotten started yet.

And whether Bill Belichick is wholly on the up-and-up or not, and whether Terry Francona makes bad decisions with his pitching staff sometimes or not, and whether Doc Rivers' success is a result of his own skills or simply of having "the Big Three", the reality is that they all have players who believe in them and are willing to play as hard as they can and do what they are told.

And believe me, I understand why people don't like Belichick - but the bottom line - the absolutely undeniable fact of the matter - is that his style of coaching completely changed the collective attitude of the Boston Sports Community (if not the National one, too).

Since 2001, the emphasis has been TEAM, TEAM, TEAM. And yes, this market can financially support filling rosters with players of this caliber, but getting those players to set aside their desire for individual statistics in return for championships is a remarkable feat.

I wonder if Deion Branch would go back in time and change things if he could. I wonder if Johnny Damon and Pedro would. I wonder if Asante Samuel will.

But anyway, none of that matters. As a fan, these are the good old days.

And I'm enjoying every single one of them.

Celtics uniforms

A quick thought while I sit watching the Celtics beat up on the Pistons in Game 5:

Though I'm sure the NBA would be reluctant at first (the possibility of increased revenue / merchandise sales can be a powerful factor), I think the names on all of the Celtics uniforms should have " O' " preceding players' last names.

Instead of Pierce, Allen, Garnett, and Rondo, the jerseys would acknowledge the team's "gimmick" and say O'Pierce, O'Allen, O'Garnett, O'Rondo, and so on.

You can't tell me that replicas and t-shirts wouldn't bring in an assload of cash, especially in the Boston area.

This would be huge, I'm telling you.

Edit: When I wrote this, they were beating up on the Pistons. I'm glad they just held on at the end. Phew!

On the Superbowl / Classic movies vs. Spongebob Squarepants

OK, so it's been over a week since the Superbowl, and I haven't commented yet on the game. My Patriots lost, but I don't feel too bad about it, despite the lack of a "perfect season."

As a Patriots fan, I've seen three Superbowl wins in eight years. My father, who had season tickets until the mid-1980s, never saw one.

This team is going to be competitive for years to come; this wasn't a fluky season that will fall into the "lucky" category (the Panthers played the Pats well in the Superbowl a couple of years ago, but where was the follow-up success? They're not even a playoff-relevant team at this point.).

The Giants played incredibly well, and the game was not decided by questionable penalty calls.

Sometimes a winning team gets lucky breaks. That's not to say that the Giants didn't do enough to earn the victory on their own, but consider the following regarding the final scoring drive alone:

1. The conversion of a long 3rd and 11.
2. The conversion of a 4th and short.
3. Asante Samuel dropping what would have been a game-ending interception.
4. Eli Manning recovering his own fumble despite having two Patriots on either side of him.
5. Eli Manning escaping what looked to be a sure sack and threw that pass resulting in ...
6. David Tyree's ridiculous catch, pinning the ball to his helmet with one hand while falling to the ground after a tackle reminiscent of a Tully Blanchard backbreaker to Magnum T.A. in 1986. (Extra points if this reference even shows up as a blip on your radar.) There's about a one percent chance of that play ending up as a successful completion; that ball would have been knocked out or hit the ground almost every time something like that happens. But this time ... this was the one that ended up on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Go figure.

For me to complain about any of these things would be somewhat hypocritical, I think. "Oh, but if THAT didn't happen ..." Well, they did. And I recall the Tuck Rule play, and David Givens "fumbling" the ball after a reception on the sideline while knocking himself out when he hit the ground, but by virtue of the ball being touched by the lower half of his body while his unconscious upper body was out of bounds, the play was called dead. Or something like that. The point being, sometimes you throw a strike, sometimes you throw a gutter. What can you do?

So congratulations to the Giants. Those who dislike the Patriots (almost everyone outside of New England, I realize) can chant "Eighteen and One" all they want - but tell me, with the exception of Giants fans, are there really any fans of other teams out there who wouldn't want to swap their fortunes with those of the Pats and their fans? 18-1 is something to be proud of.

I mean, tell me Dolphins fans wouldn't be ecstatic to have been 18-1 with a Superbowl loss than to be 1-15.

Tell me you wouldn't rather call an 18-1 team (in one season) your own rather than being a Raiders fan, supporting a team that has one more game than the Patriots SINCE 2003 (19 wins in four seasons) than the Patriots did in 2007 alone.

Was it disappointing? Sure, a little bit. But if you ask me, it's still pretty damn good, no?

And not to poop on the Patriots or seem like I'm "jumping ship" after a loss, but as a side note, at the end of the game, Nicole turned to me and said, "Sorry your team lost." I said, "They're not my team." I pointed to my Red Sox hat and said, "THEY're my team."

You can like the Stones and you can like the Beatles, but you have to like one of them more. That's just the way it is. (And for those who wonder, I like the Beatles more than the Stones.)

If you would have asked me in 2000 before any of the recent success of both teams began in earnest which I would have rather seen happened, I'd have told you I'd have traded 10 Superbowls for just one World Series. And I got three and two, respectively. And counting.

*****

If you don't know/like classic movies or Spongebob, you might not like this, but if you DO, be sure to check this out. It's clips of "Casablanca", "Singing in the Rain" and "The Godfather", as re-dubbed by the cast of Spongebob in their characters' voices.

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