The Garden of Kevin

Paul Pierce, with his 10-year loyalty and superb Finals performance, deserves to have the TD Banknorth Garden’s name attached to his. But even Pierce has to admit that without Kevin Garnett (we’ll discuss Ray Allen later), the Boston Celtics would still be languishing in the Eastern Conference, drinking cold beer in the warm summer months, enjoying the playoffs in front of the TV.

Pierce, though, truly earns the Finals MVP title. His 17 points, 10 assists (nine alone in the first half), and three rebounds are proof of his Game 6 all-around court command. Pierce made like Kobe Bryant, slashing to the paint for a lay-up and when he found himself caught in the trees, passed off to whoever Celtic was free in the perimeter or the 3-point arc.

Also playing his best in the series today, Boston’s starting point-guard, the sophomore Rajon Rondo, a good five inches shorter than Pierce, had four rebounds more than the Finals MVP. More importantly, Rondo had six crucial steals, two on Bryant alone, and had just one turnover in 32 minutes of play. Doc Rivers may still be eight championship rings short of Phil Jackson’s Red-Auerbach-tying nine, but he out-coached Jackson in the Finals.

Consider Rivers’ second-quarter decision to go small with Eddie House, Pierce, Leon Powe, James Posey, and PJ Brown. Garnett was on the bench, while Allen, his eyes poked by Lamar Odom during one of Allen’s daring lay-ups earlier in the first half, was being treated in the locker room.

OF ROOKIES AND RISKS. Practically, no matter who from the bench Jackson puts on the floor will still outsize that Celtics batch. When Garnett came back to replace Powe at 7:32, the Celtics still had the lead, 32-29. The break gave Garnett not only a breather but also kept Garnett from committing more fouls as he is wont to do. Now, how about Glen Davis, how many coaches out there are willing to take the risk on a rookie playing in the Finals for the very first time. Trust and prescience are two of the hallmarks of a very good basketball coach.

Davis played for almost 15 minutes and had a measly three points, a field goal and a free throw, but with Kendrick Perkins not a 100 percent, Davis played a minute longer than Boston’s starting center.

Overall, the Los Angeles is the better team, man for man. Almost nobody thought Boston would last more than five games. Indeed, Rivers did better than Jackson. The Celtics beat the Lakers. By 39 frigging points! You need more proof than that? Likewise, it was the first time in the Finals that the winning margin was more than 10.

So it was, the Celtics reclaimed NBA Finals on the 17th of June year of our Lord 2008 for the legendary team’s 17th title, with one of the greatest Celtics ever in the audience, John “Hondo” Havlicek, who sported a No. 17 jersey. Hang it up on the rafters of the TD Banknorth Garden, KG! along with Havlicek’s retired jersey number. Superstition may just be a combination of gut feeling and statistical mumbo jumbo, but also consider who won the jump ball. The Lakers did, same as the Celtics in Game 5. The Finals teams who got the ball in the first seconds of the ballgame eventually lost.

Reserving their best for last, the Celtics had almost total domination of a Lakers team that despite the just four-point Celtics lead (24-20) after the first quarter, had the seeds of the Lakers’ destruction planted on the Garden. Since Game 1, it was the first time the Celtics led after the first quarter, proof that Boston makes a habit of coming back.

RIFLEMAN RAY. Oh, sorry. Ray Allen. Sorry, Ray. You did very well, Mr. Rifleman. Allen had 26 points, including 7-of-9 from the arc, which tied a Finals record, 8-of-12 on field-goal attempts, and not surprisingly, was perfect from the line, 3-3. The stats don’t tell the whole story. They never do. Allen showed the warrior in him by getting back into the game despite Odom’s long fingers invading his eye sockets. There are those who mistake Allen of being soft just because he is soft-spoken and prefers to shoot from the outside with that picture-perfect textbook-model jumper. But Allen can drive to the hoop just as gracefully, with or without a defender.

Boston’s Big 3 all played big. But five makes a basketball team on the court. Whoever played with the Big 3 were just as important in winning No.17. With an intact line-up next season, No.18 wouldn’t be too difficult to visualize.

Same time next year, Lakers? Bring Big Andrew Bynum with you. The Celtics aren’t worried. They’ve got Big Baby Davis.

myPOST-ITS:
“Regal,” ESPN color commentary team member Jeff Van Gundy called John Havlicek “regal” for sporting thicker, though, white hair at age 68 than Van Gundy at 46. Van Gundy has a few strands he combs across his pate. Van Gundy is one of the most knowledgeable and perceptive, if not the most incisive, NBA commentators now working, and definitely the funniest. He is even funnier than Charles Barkley.

In the Garden lurks the inevitable

KG, KJ; Kobe, from mediocre to great

Don't know which is worse, watching the Celtics come so close to finishing off the Lakers or listening (forced to listen, more like it) to the encyclopedic babbler Quinito Henson and carabao-English proponent Chino Trinidad doing their best to make it interesting watching an NBA game, trying to convince those with access to cable TV that they are better off tuning in to Crime/Suspense/RPN 9’s coverage instead of at Basketball TV.

Stil (i.e. steal) by Kobi Bryant…Kobi. Kobi. KOBI MIKS A TREEEEE!!!!

It’s not funny anymore listening to Trinidad mangle the Queen’s English, the King’s English, and Tayshaun Prince’s English in two hours it regularly takes an NBA game to run its course.

HISTORY AGAIN. There they went again, repeating themselves.
The Lakers went on to leave the Celtics behind in their first-quarter dust, 39-22, and, as if on cue, the Celtics pursued them with road detritus in their mouths, to come closer, 52-55, at the end of the first half.

Kevin Garnett, as aggressive (read: passionate) as ever, committed his third (unearned) foul on Pau Gasol, a mere 13 seconds after relieving P.J. Brown, who himself committed his third foul earlier. Brown was exemplary, in his first-half stint, putting up not much on the stats sheet with just four points and three rebounds, but his defense helped the Celtics get back. Without the hulking Kendrick Perkins, out on a shoulder injury, Brown filled the lanes well.

Smiling, the 15-year-veteran Brown came back to give Garnett another unnecessary breather. Sure, Garnett didn’t really commit a foul, slapping his hand on the hand of Gasol holding the ball. According to NBA rules, the hand holding the ball, being part of the ball, if it is hit, no call is to be called. But we all know how the rules don’t always work, or how the referees don’t always see or choose not to see.

“One bucket at a time,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers exhorted his players in a timeout. Indeed, as the Celtics racked up 15 straight points to the Lakers' zero for a stretch, it seemed the Celtics were well on their way to ending the series at the Staples Center, thousands of miles away from the TD Banknorth Garden.

In the minds of many fans, both pro-Boston and pro-Lakers, the Lakers were too spent on excessive expectations and unexpected defeats to put up a fight in Game 5. Entering Staples Center locker room, the cameras zoomed in on Paul Pierce and Perkins, in dark suits and darker glasses, looking like they were on their way instead to audition for Men In Black 3 at a Columbia Pictures soundstage. Call it confidence, or call it conceit, but surely, many Celtics must have already felt some of the euphoria of grabbing the Larry O’Brien trophy Sunday night. Overconfidence is never a good thing.

GREEN GRIT. But Boston did play with a lot grit and confidence yesterday. After they were only four points down, 86-90, after James Posey’s three, time down to 5:48 in the fourth, you could almost feel the cold go up the collective spine of the Staples Center crowd, and cold sweat start to pour from Jack Nicholson’s bald spot to his shades.

They call it the Boston run. Garnett’s 14-foot jumper tied the game, 90-90. Shine the trophy, boys! But it wasn’t to be. Pau Gasol’s baby hook regained the lead for the Lakers, which they kept until the final buzzer, 103-98.

A lot of drama went down from 90-all to 103-98, and Bryant contributed to it. He will undoubtedly be acclaimed as one of the greatest players in the NBA, right up there in the basketball firmament with Bill Russell, Jerry West, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and…drum roll…Michael Jordan.

With less than a minute left in the final quarter, Bryant showed his greatness and his weakness. He attempted a three at 1:15 when they didn’t need it, causing Lamar Odom to foul Pierce, who went to the stripe but made only one of two shots. Bryant could have used his one-on-one superiority to slash to the paint and make a two or get fouled to earn two free throws. Instead, he missed his jumper, the Celtics got the rebound, Pierce’s 1-of-2 cut LA’s lead to just three, 97-94.

Then Bryant redeemed himself. Pierce had ball possession, Bryant sneaked from behind to tap the ball to Odom, who in turn passed it to Bryant for a fastbreak dunk, 99-95. In a span of 38 seconds, the Lakers superstar showed two sides of his basketball personality: middling and great.

The Game 5 win wasn’t as ugly as the Lakers’ Game 3 victory, but they did live to play another day. Boston, on the other hand, was just a bit too predictable: Let the Lakers take the early lead, let’s do catch-up. Catsup on meat patty tastes good, but patty alone tastes good, too, our neighborhood burger-store owner always says.

When Doc Rivers sat down Garnett for Rondo with nine seconds left, all Celtics on court were guards/forwards, all capable of shooting threes. And for that reason, they should have taken care of the ball much better, not having James Posey casually pass the inbound to a waiting Derek Fisher who dribbled the precious seconds away to secure the win for his team.

Bryant was waving to the crowd, clapping his hands, while the sidecourt lady was waiting to interview him. Odom was being interviewed by another person himself a few feet away, while their teammates walked past them not looking like they had just won. The Lakers had the look of the defeated (which, in many ways they still are), or the defeated who are merely suspending the inevitable.

Like this very game that they had numerically won by five points. It was a scrambling triumph at best, forging a Game 6 back in…wait, don’t let Los Angeles hear it…Boston, where the Celtics are 2-0 against the Lakers in this series. It is now, 3-2, for the Celtics. Just one more game. Just one more win. The Celtics have two chances to end it. And it will be another championship banner hanging from the rafters.

Yes, home is indeed sweet, especially if you are primed to let the balloons, confetti, and buntings fall in celebration.

This is it. Game 6. The buck stops here.

FFA myNOTES:
If there were any Cebuano-speaking members of the audience at the SC in Game 5, they would have sported knowing smiles listening to the “LO LO LO…” chant of the nervous crowd.

It ain’t easy being Celtics green in Lala land

-- Sasha, get your goat; Ray of light; God; Fear of the unknown --

Game 3:

“He lost a goat…no big deal.”

There are seemingly inconsequential things in this world that reinforces my hardened belief (faith, if you will) that there is a God. Watching a Los Angeles Laker dribbling the ball while waiting for the final buzzer, and the Boston Celtics losing, 81-87, I pressed the TV remote jump button and saw the caption text of the quote above by a grizzled old man in a National Geographic feature on Iranian nomadic goat herders.

The Celtics lost Game 3. Big deal. They were expected to. Some quarters might even expect the Lakers to win Games 4 and 5 after the euphoria of that victory. I have publicly (to friends and colleagues, at least) spoken that I would love to see a Game 7 at the TD Banknorth Garden/Fleet Center.

But that was a troubling win for the Lakers. Even in their homecourt, even with naysayers earlier declaring that the Celtics were overmatched (despite a 2-0 regular-season record against the Lakers, despite having the best regular-season record at 66-16), Mr. Kobe “Ballhog turned passing superstar now MVP” Bryant and Co. had a tough time earning that win.

Now we have a Finals.

Game 4:

If by some unjust quirk of the cosmic forces, and saintly Ray Allen is sent to hell, the Boston Celtics shooting guard will still stay cool.

This game will forever be entrenched in the minds of basketball fans and conspiracy theorists. Comebacks from 20-plus points in any quarter in an NBA Finals are not just rare but heroic. Did the referees swallow their whistles to give the Celtics the edge?

This game will forever be remembered for Allen’s superheroic moves: an up-and-under reverse lay-up from the left wing past the defense of Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom, and a one-on-one cha-cha-cha lefty lay-up past a hapless Sasha Vujacic to up the Celtics’ lead to five, 96-91. Allen’s expression didn’t even change after those baskets. His Big 3 teammates Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett and the Celtics on the court and on the bench, and the whole of Massachusetts, were whooping it up as if they had already won the series. Who could blame them? By the looks of it, with 16 seconds left, they had. Eddie House sank 1-of-2 free throws for the final score, 97-91.

History is on the Celtics’ side. No team has ever come back from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals. The Celtics are 30-0 after winning the first two games in the playoffs.

By some quirk of the cosmos, as I was writing this piece, Steely Dan’s Change Of The Guard was playing on my PC. It is the second to the last song on the band’s classic 1972 debut album, Can’t Buy A Thrill. (Plug time: check out steelydanfanmach3.blogspot.com and poetasterix.blogspot.com for more of this blogger’s follies). Lakers head coach Phil Jackson should have changed the guard on Allen. There is no way jump-shooting self-declared “machine” hair-farm Vujacic can take on the bald-headed brilliance of playground-maestro Allen one-on-one. Don’t argue. You saw what happened.

Leon Powe’s (him again, Mr. Jackson) jumper tied the score at 73-all not two minutes into the fourth quarter. After coming back from 24 points down in the second, 21-45, the Celtics took the lead, 84-83, for the first time on Eddie House’s basket in the final 4:07. They kept it until the final buzzer.

OK, it’s not over ’til it’s over, the fat lady hasn’t been sited yet on stage…provide your own cliché here. All right, let’s wait and see. But as always, Free-For-All is sticking to the Boston Stranglers.

Until Larry Bird flips the bird on Red Auerbach, make mine Celtics.

Game 5 is still at Lakers territory. A lot of good it will do the Lakers. They may win Game 5 but they will still be a game down with the last two games in Boston. No more stats! Just figure the odds yourself, and more importantly, whether you are for the Lakers or for the Celtics, to enjoy the games.

It will be fun.

Especially if you are not green-eyed with envy. Apologies to The Bard. Smirk.

Game 5:

I have openly said that I would love to watch a Game 7 of this series. After that historic Game 4 turnaround by the Celtics in enemy territory, I don’t relish the thought of a for-all-the-marbles encounter anymore.

Being three games up over one in an NBA Finals series is something to crow about, yes, but it is not an impregnable advantage. As Sasha the hairy goat said, “This should be a good test for us if we are ready to win the championship,” citing that the Phoenix Suns did it in the 2006 playoffs.

Mr. Vujacic is right. The Suns did it. The Phoenix Suns, Sasha, sir. Who did the Suns beat the stuffings out of to earn that distinction? Your team, Sasha. The Suns with slippery smart eel point-guard genius Steve Nash and a motley support crew of Boris Diaw, Leandro Barbosa, Raja Bell, Tim and Kurt Thomas, and the now sorely-missed Shawn Marion. Amare Stoudemire was recovering from an injury at the time but the Thomases, Marion, and Diaw, filled the vacuum down low admirably.

Who do you have with you in this playoffs, Sasha? You as a sniper from the wings (.522 FG% and .545 3P% against the Celtics in the Finals) and regular season MVP Kobe “Still a Michael Jordan wannabe but never will be” Bryant, a great one-on-one player but just good in this Finals. You have late-season addition Pau Gasol, inconsistent Lamar Odom, and Andrew Bynum on sick bay (shades of Amare Stoudemire). I am biased, admittedly, but the only players in the present crop of Lakers, after Bryant, that I admire are Luke Walton and the seemingly ageless and very resilient Derek Fisher. Fisher never gives up. His high-arching 3-point shot is thing of beauty and grace. Walton doesn’t have the height and skills of his father, Bill, one of the 50 Greatest NBA Players of All Time and future Hall Of Famer, but Luke has inherited the fighting genes of his dad. Bryant, Fisher, and Walton will never give up, even if two points down with a second to go in the game, even with a two-game deficit in a seven-game series.

They are the Lakers' Big 3 (Gasol and Odom are playing like bench players at this time), in my estimation. They can make things turn around for their team. Getting out of a deep hole they have dug for themselves is a daunting task. It is not impossible but highly improbable. Only one sure way to find out if the Lakers can do a Lazarus -- let’s see them play in Game 5. If they force a Game 6, let’s see if they can force a Game 7.

This is one of those times when I wish I were more careful with what I wished for. I just might get it. Get it?

Linux is the Word; Ubuntu is the magic word

I don’t know if the South African man that Boston Celtics head coach Doc Rivers asked to talk to his team uses a Microsoft or Linux operating system on his computer, but when he tried to psyche up the Celtics with the mantra ubuntu (“a philosophy of life that promotes the greater good rather than individual success,” from the “Bantu group of languages” of Africa – thank you, Wikipedia), it was like a schoolmarm teaching a wide-eyed class of fourth graders the wonder word magic (not Earvin Johnson). Rabbit out of a hat drawing smiles and claps, Chris Angel impaled on a fence smiling, drawing disgusted oohs and ahhs. Tells you lots on generation gap on wonder level there.

My computer’s OS used to be Linux Ubuntu, not because I liked it that way. No. I didn’t even know what Ubuntu was until I spent hours struggling over an operating system that was supposed to be “user-friendly.” But for someone who has been using a Microsoft OS for the good part of a decade, shifting, or trying, or better still, forced to try (it came with the laptop I just bought) a Linux OS was like being forced to sleep in the same bed with a woman I had only met an hour ago at an anti-government rally…in Zambia. And she doesn’t even speak the same language (or languages, I know three, one of these is English, as most Filipinos with a high-school education) as I do. OK, the prospect of having a strange woman in your bed is exciting, especially if she keeps saying to you, “Ubuntu! Ubuntu! Ubuntuuuuuu!!!”

In my first language, Ubuntu rhymes with a very sexually-charged word. But we just met! I like my conquests smiling and able to say words to me like: “How about this one, sir…Not too expensive…Thank you, come again.” Who doesn’t like to shop in a store with a very accommodating sales lady?

Ubuntu and the Celtics. From the regular season to now, the Celtics have had remarkable success. Ubuntu rulz! That’s the most important thing …it works. So, no more digs on this Ubuntu thing. I had a friend replace my OS with Windows XP. I am back in familiar surroundings but I kind of miss Ubuntu's quirks and novelty, though. I have an older laptop and I plan to find a place for Linux Ubuntu there.

JACKSON’S MIND GAMES. Lakers head coach Phil Jackson is at it again. Playing mind games is a big part of Jackson’s success as coach in the NBA. Nine Finals championships and counting. But after a heartbreaking Game 2 loss, despite coming back from 24 down in the fourth quarter to just two in the last 7.55 minutes, the Lakers failed to upend the Celtics, 102-108, and Jackson again digs deep into his bag of tricks.

Harping on the 43-17 free-throw disparity, using seldom-used Leon Powe, who had 21 points, more than either Allen or Garnett, as a peg for his criticism of the officiating, Jackson is of course aware that the far-from perfect (and it will never be) refereeing will not always be to his team’s advantage. Jackson doesn’t have to think far back into history for images of the Sacramento Kings complaining of biased officiating (if you saw the game, you might just agree it was horrendous) for the Lakers after the still-notorious Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals, where the referees in their eternal wisdom and fairness, called 27 fouls on the Kings and only nine on the Lakers in the fourth quarter alone, when it was the Kings who were more aggressive going to the basket.

History has a way of biting you on the butt, Mr. Jackson, if you ignore it. Or conveniently forget it. Learn your lessons well.

Celtics head coach Doc Rivers, on the other hand, is right to say that his team was more aggressive (sounds familiar?) in going into the paint. Naturally, they gave the referees a lot more reason to call the fouls. The referees cannot be everywhere all the time. Even God rested on the seventh day. It was a Sunday when Game 2 was played in Boston’s TD Banknorth Garden, so maybe the Supreme Being was watching the game, too, even though it was His day off. Unfortunately, He wasn’t activated to officiate the game, so, sorry, Mr. Jackson. Maybe next time. Games 3, 4, and, “if necessary,” Game 5 will be played at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Who knows, the calls might go your team’s way by then.

Where was I? Yes, the Celtics, who at the time of this post are up 2-0 over the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals. Retired and semi-retired Celtic fans come out of your shells! Game 3, 4, and 5 may be at the arena that Jack Nicholson built, but if Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and the rest of the Celtics cast steal just one in LA, our beloved green-clad heroes will look like the DC superhero Green Lantern in a cabbage patch. Green, green all the way.

Now, who said the Pau Gasol-reinforced Lakers are too tough for the Garnet-and-Allen-reinforced Celtics? If I remember my math, two is bigger than one. But a basketball team is bigger than the sum of its parts. And an NBA Finals journey doesn’t stop until one team racks up four wins over the other. OK, two to go, Celtics. You do the math.