boston celtics

Champions!

Final Score: Boston Celtics 131, Los Angeles Lakers 92.
And it wasn't even that close.

I have seen dozens and dozens of championships, in multitudes of different sports, on the professional, college, and high school level, and I have never, ever, EVER seen a happier team than this one.

How many times have you seen the Gatorade dump at a basketball game?

(the answer, by the way, is never)

How many times have you seen a seven-foot superstar so overcome that he gets down on his knees to kiss the parquet floor?

I've rooted pretty hard for some teams, and while I don't think any championship will mean as much to me as the 2004 World Series, this one came pretty close. Watching the team during the fourth quarter as they celebrated on the sidelines, even as their bench continued the domination on the court, and then seeing that bear hug between Pierce and Rivers as the final seconds ticked away, it all gave me goosebumps.

But it was seeing Garnett at the end as Michele TaFoya tried to interview him, unable to look up, unable to speak, too choked up to do anything that really got to me. Garnett has been in a zone all year, his head totally dedicated to this one goal that's eluded him the entirety of his storied career. And tonight, getting it, he looked like it was all worth it.

And then Pierce, holding that MVP trophy over his head, standing on a bench in the middle of the parquet and yelling at the crowd, too excited and proud to even notice the microphone ABC was trying desperately to hand up - that's when I got the lump in my throat. Pierce has been the face of the Celtics for 10 long, tough years, and we've always loved him for sticking with us. For years, the Pierce moment that defined his toughness was the day, two weeks after he got stabbed 11 times in the chest by a crazed fan, where he went out and played in the Boston's first exhibition game. That was when we knew we had someone special.

Bill Simmons has written a great piece about seeing the Celtics finally take home this championship, and of course it talks about this being the 17th championship for the Celtics. That's been the focus of all the articles written in the past 24 hours, but to me, it's not the 17th championship, it's the first. I've grown up with a Celtics franchise completely lost - I've followed them for 12 years with barely a hint of any kind of hope. I don't have a golden era to look back on; this is my golden era.

Almost exactly a year ago, after the 2007 lottery when our bad luck turned on us again and we only got the number five pick in a draft we'd specifically been losing to get Kevin Durant or Greg Oden, I wrote a post giving up on the Celtics. We'd just thrown an entire season on what proved to be the false hope of landing a superstar, and there was no light at the end of the tunnel. We were going into another season with a collection of young guys who'd combined to win 24 games the season before, plus one more raw, unpolished talent like Yi Jianlian in the mix. One more year of wasting Pierce's prime. I was done with the Celtics, I was done with waiting for someone in the front office to wake up and say "y'know, we're never going to compete with this bunch of kids." I've been a diehard NBA fan since I was in the sixth grade, and I'd seen teams rebuild their way into contention, and whatever it was we were doing, rebuilding wasn't it. I gave up.

And then, suddenly, the front office did wake up. We traded the #5 pick and pieces to Seattle for Ray Allen, then managed to send 7 different players to Minnesota for Kevin Garnett, and suddenly - we were a real team again. We had players who wanted to play hard, who wanted to win, who believed that they could. And for the first time in my life, I got to root for a team that I could actually believe in.

And for the first time in my life, I got to see them win it all.

And it feels good.

Celtics Vs. Lakers

As a Celtics fan, I've been pretty nervous all the way through these playoffs; if you've followed
these playoffs at all, you'll understand. Seven games against the Hawks, seven against the Cavs, six against the Pistons - if the Lakers series goes to six games, it will be the most playoff games played by any one team in the history of the NBA, that's not the path a championship team follows, that's a bizarro world version of Moses Malone's "fo', fo', fo'," and I don't like it.

Still, watching that last game of the Pistons series, I saw, one more time, the Celtics I fell in love with over the regular season - a team that destroyed their opponents with defensive rotation, star power, and sheer determination and force of will. A team I could believe could beat this Laker's team.

With all the talk of how strong the Lakers are and how quickly they're going to stomp on the Celtics, it's fair to point out that the Celtics match up very well against the Lakers. Look:

PG - Derek Fisher vs. Rajon Rondo
Fisher is steadier and more capable, but he's got no upside. Bryant's the playmaker and the man who stays in control of the rock, that's why Bryant's assist numbers are double Fisher's. Fisher's responsibility is to play second fiddle to Bryant and not mess things up - eleven points, three dimes, and a steal a game in the regular season, and his numbers have dropped even further in the playoffs (though his steals are up). He's a good man for the job he's got, but he's never going to step up more than he has.

Rondo might. No one's made more strides over the course of this season than Rondo, and he continues to move forward over the course of these playoffs - his assists are up one and a half per game, and he's hit as many three-pointers as he did over the course of the whole season. He's obviously much more of a wildcard than Fisher and might implode at an inopportune time, but on the flip side, he could also suddenly explode for 15 dimes, and his playmaking continues to take so many strides that his defenders are starting to give him that extra step - even established point guards like Billups. Fisher's no Chauncey Billups.

Advantage: Celtics

SG - Sasha Vujacic vs. Ray Allen
Vujacic is a long-range gunner with no other skills, Allen's a fading superstar with a little left in the tank. Vujacic gives the Lakers 8 points a game on 44 percent three-point shooting but can't be trusted to do anything else, Allen's will get twice as many points, twice as many rebounds, three times as many assists, and for once will not be a liability on the the defensive end as Vujacic is not suddenly gonna become a drive-and-dish slasher.

Slump or no slump, bad ankles or no bad ankles, Advantage: Celtics

SF - Kobe Bryant vs. Paul Pierce - It's closer than people think, but, not much closer, so yeah... it's a dumb question.

Advantage: Lakers

By the way, speaking of Kobe, he's launching his way into becoming one of the top-10 players of all time, but there's a caveat - as great as he is, he's always going to be that player who bitches and whines until he gets his way, even if his way isn't the best way.

Look at it like this: if you were to play a pickup game, two-on-two, you plus any player in history in their prime, with the punishment for losing being death, how high on that list would Kobe be? I'd pick Wilt and MJ first, but after that... I mean, I'd pick him over Bird. I'd pick him over Magic, the big O, West, Russell, Hakeem, Duncan, Shaq - I really think he'd be my third pick in that situation.

Now, let's say that you're building a team that will compete for several seasons, with two superstars, one that will be picked at random and one that you get to pick. You can pick any superstar from history. How far down is Kobe on that list. 10th? 20th? 30th? Further? You would take far less talented players just to avoid the possibility of everything blowing up in your face. Everyone would.

Just thought I'd settle that. Moving on...

PF - Lamar Odom vs. Kevin Garnett
Bad reputation aside, Odom's been strong, both this season and these playoffs. Shooting well, 15 points and 10 boards a game, he's a legitimate third option for the Lakers, a position that fits him much better than second option ever did. If he takes it up a level, it'll negate the effect Garnett has on this series, and likely swing the whole series in favor of the Lakers.

Garnett's still a mystery to me. The whole playoffs, he's been reluctant to establish himself as a force down low, relying on jump shots and high post moves. If he takes Odom to the rim consistently, this matchup is gonna be a lot more important than just the extra five points per game Garnett offers.

Advantage: Celtics

Center: Pau Gasol vs. Kendrick Perkins
The question isn't whether Gasol is better, or if it's even close, but just whether Perk can stand up to Gasol enough to handle him. These playoffs, Gasol has increased his rebounds and assists - he's now averaging an 18-9-4 with 2.5 blocks a game. That's domination down low there.

Perkins is a young guy, he's up and down like most young big men. He'll disappear in some games and come out strong in others. At least once this series Gasol will take him for 28 points and 16 rebounds, at least once in this series Perk will play him head to head. We'll lose Gasol's good game and win Perk's good one. And we better hope he's got more than one good one.

Advantage: Lakers

Bench - Lakers vs. Celtics
James Posey could legitimately start for any playoff team, and there's no one like that on the Laker bench. The Lakers have a talented point guard in Jordan Farmar and a strong big man in Vlad Radmanovic, and no one else of interest. The deeper you go into the benches, the more the Celtics have the advantage - between Sam Cassell and Eddie House, they've always got a backup PG option, plus an experienced big man in P.J. Brown. Plus, some good young big men in Leon Powe and Big Baby Davis that can pound away down low.

Advantage: Celtics

Coach - Phil Jackson vs. Doc Rivers
Heh. Heh heh. Ha ha ha ahaha hahahahahahaha! Ha ha ha!

Hee hee.

Heh.

Massive Advantage: Lakers

So, despite the large coaching gap, that doesn't look too bad, does it? That looks like a legitimate series right there, not some runaway train pounding a sad-sack newcomer? I say yes.

11 Predictions
1. If the Celtics win the series and Pierce is named Series MVP, he becomes a lock for the Hall of Fame, something he wasn't before.
2. Whoever wins Game 1 wins the series.
3. Kobe has at least one game over 40 points.
4. Pierce has at least one game over 30 points.
5. Garnett destroys Odom by a painful degree in one game.
6. Same for Gasol with Perkins.
7. Anytime Ray Allen scores more than 20, the Celtics win.
8. Rondo has one game with more than 12 assists.
9. There will be hundreds of articles trumpeting the even-better-than-expected ratings for the series.
10. Garnett will have one point where he will go so ballistic even the announcers are scared.
11. Celtics in 6.

There'll be no more waiting.

My dad is a stats man. Since he doesn't have a television at the house, and he probably wouldn't watch it much even if he did, he doesn't ever end up watching any of the Celtics games each year. But he follows it online, seeing how the young players are improving, figuring out where the team will end up in the draft, dissecting all of Danny Ainge's baffling front office moves.

Whenever he gets the notion, he'll put down his current thoughts about the Celtic's status in an e-mail and send it along, and I'll write back with my interpretation, along with what I'd seen on Sportcenter and the glimpses of Celtics games that I'd caught that year. But each season it finally reaches a point with me where the team has just made so many bewildering moves and trampled on my hopes so much that I just can't take it anymore. And when my dad sends me one of those e-mails, I'll write him back and just say "I'm done." I just reach a point where I simply can't spend any more precious time thinking about a Celtics team that has done virtually everything to convince their fan base that they have no idea what they're doing. Around the time the lottery rolls around, I perk up and join back in, researching likely picks for the team and trying to figure out if they have the players to make the leap to the playoffs this year. Each year, my hope returns, a little bit diminished from the time before, but it returns.

But this is it. I can't root for this team anymore, I can't wait for this team anymore, I can't do it. I'm done.

I first got into NBA basketball in the fall 1995, after the Rockets had just won their second championship. I was just starting 6th grade, and my dad handed me an issue of Sport magazine that someone had left behind at work. It was the NBA preview for the coming year. I don't know what happened to me - maybe it was just the time in my life or some part of my personality, maybe I just needed a new interest - but it just took. I read that issue over and over and over, hundreds of times, dog-earing the pages, memorizing their player rankings - Hakeem Olajuwon and Michael Jordan were the only "A+" players, but there were lots of "A" players: Shaquille O'Neal, Penny Hardaway, Clyde Drexler, Mitch Richmond, Chris Webber. In some ways, I've never shaken those rankings from my mind - 12 years later, Juwan Howard is still a "B+" player. I'm quite sure I'm the only one who thinks so.

Eventually I cut out all the player pictures and stuck them on the wall around my bed with sticky tack. I would lay there at night, looking at them: there was KJ, grimacing as he drove into a crowded lane. There was cocky Nick Van Exel, disdainfully beating his man off the dribble. There was young Glenn Robinson, gliding to the hoop. There was Karl Malone, lofting a two-handed set shot. I would stare at those pictures and dream of that grace and skill. It was that next year, with no skills, no knowledge of the actual rules of basketball, and absolutely no talent, that I joined the school basketball team for the first time. It was those pictures that made me believe I had it in me.

The issue declared it a virtual lock that the Rockets would three-peat, beating the Magic in the Finals again. They figured that high-school draft pick Kevin Garnett was going to be a huge disaster for Minnesota. They figured the return of Jordan would be dramatic but wouldn't be enough to launch his team to a championship. And it figured the Celtics weren't going anywhere fast. On this matter - and this matter alone, I think - they were quite correct.

I began rooting for the Celtics that season. Sure, I followed the whole league - I knew every player in it for those first three or four years - but it was the Celtics that captured me. They were the hometown team, with this grand history of awkward white guys who played with tenacity and fluidity and success. That year they went 33-49, and drafted a young forward from Kentucky named Antoine Walker whom I believed would be the savior of the franchise. My mom photocopied me Dan Ryan's Boston Globe article about the Celtics selecting Walker, and I hung it on my wall next to the pictures, where Walker's picture smiled out at me, his arms still raised in victory from the stock photo they used for the article: a picture of him celebrating on the court after Kentucky won the national title that year. I was sure that would be us, soon.

But it wasn't us. Chicago won another title that year, on their way to a second three-peat, and our general manager, M.L. Carr, decided to try his and at coaching. The Celtics went an abysmal 15-67, almost an NBA record, and an embarrassment to a fan base used to failure from the hard-luck Red Sox, and the laughably incompetent Patriots, but not from their proud, resilient Celtics. Radio call-in stations were flooded with fans who spewed hatred at Carr, and publicly pleaded for run-and-gun college coach Rick Pitino to come up and save the franchise. People even wrote comic songs about it, I still remember one playing over the radio. "Oh, Rick Pitino, come to Bos-ton. 'Cause M.L. Carr's killin' me..."

And Pitino came. And I waited for it to happen. I knew it was going to happen. And then the NBA draft rolled around.

It was the year of Tim Duncan. Admittedly, there were other players that people were looking forward to - a lanky senior forward from Utah named Keith Van Horn. A flashy playmaker from Colorado named Chauncey Billups. A versatile swingman named Tim Thomas. Some people were even talking about taking a risk on this high school kid from Mount Zion named Tracy McGrady. But was Duncan everyone wanted, and everyone knew it. And the Celtics fans knew we had him all but locked up. I'd watched our team tank all season, waiting for Duncan to come and save us.

Because of unusual trades and the addition of two different expansion teams the year before who weren't allowed to receive the top pick, the Celtics had an astronomically good chance of getting the top pick. In addition, they were also receiving another pick from Dallas, to whom they'd quite brilliantly traded Eric Montross for the rights to, in addition to the getting to move up and select Walker the year before. You can't blame Dallas, of course, for moving down in the draft that year. After all, there were loads of players still available: Derek Fisher, Pedrag Stojakavich, Jermaine O'Neal, Steve Nash, even Kobe Bryant. Dallas, naturally, selected Samaki Walker. I'd like to bet they eventually regretted that.

I bring all this up so that you can see that things weren't all that black-and-white right then. We didn't know who was going to hit big and who was going to bust. I thought maybe all these high-school kids could work out, but they seemed to be too big a risk, I didn't know then who would be big, except for this: I knew I wanted Tim Duncan. I knew he was going to change everything. I knew that it was the dawn of a new era.

But it never happened. The ping-pong balls bounced differently than they should have bounced, differently than they were supposed to bounce, and we ended up with the 3rd and 6th picks. We picked up Chauncey Billups and Ron Mercer, both of whom the team quickly decided weren't going to pan out and started shopping them around. Tim Duncan joined David Robinson on the Spurs and led them to a championship two years later. Pitino came, traded all our players for fresh blood, traded those players again, and then left after it became quite clear that no fresh blood, least of all his, was ever going to change our losing ways.

We drafted player after player so uninteresting that every detail about them has already faded from my memory: Jérome Moïso, Josip Sesar, Joseph Forte, Darius Songaila, Dahntay Jones. Jim O'Brian came and left. We traded Chauncey Billups for Kenny Anderson. We traded away Joe Johnson for Tony Delk. Paul Pierce got stabbed in a bar by a random fan. I knew how he felt. We traded Vitaly Potapenko and Kenny Anderson for Vin Baker, who promptly went crazy. I knew how he felt.

Danny Ainge arrived, and promised fresh blood and more talent. We traded Antoine Walker for Raef Lafrenz, then traded again to get him back, then traded him away again for literally nothing. Then we traded Raef Lafrenz, too. We traded to get Ricky Davis, then traded just to get rid of him. We traded desperately, treating each move like a blackjack hand, waiting for that lucky hand that would let us bust the dealer. We kept adding more young players and subtracting the young players we'd traded for the time before, waiting for that one who would take us there. Take us back where we belonged, on the top of the heap. Take us to the place I'd dreamed about, lying on my bed, staring at a grainy black-and-white photo on the wall. I just kept waiting. And I wound up back here again on lottery night, 10 years later. Waiting for Greg Oden. Waiting for Kevin Durant. Waiting for that player to take us there.

But Oden's not coming. Durant's not coming. No one is coming, no one is going to show up and save us, save me from all this waiting, all this hoping, all this dreaming that someday my team will get it back again. And I'm through waiting.

I'm done.