Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Two Fairly Large Tickets
A gutsy, inspiring win over a quality opponent in what was probably the best game of the season. For many of us who have wasted hours of our lives watching this cruddy team fuck around and produce naught but a big pile of unproductive losses, it was a golden opportunity to shout "about goddamn fucking time" and allow ourselves to get excited about things. About goddamn fucking time we saw Perk and Al play regular minutes, about goddamn fucking time Blount sat his worthless ass, about goddamn fucking time the Celtics stopped turning into zombies and actually played like men in the fourth quarter.
Although it ended on a note of almost epic triumph, the game was actually pretty weird. Similar to the theory of special relativity which posits that any vantage point in spacetime is equally valid to any other, (and thus, illogical observations are not contradictory) two observers in relative motion would have experienced this game as the Celtics playing at their very worst and very best. Things were ugly to start, they melted down completely at the end of the first quarter and trailed by nine at the half. During this stretch Doc played every player he had and this developed into the usual discombobulated disaster we've come to expect.
In the second half, however, Pierce came alive in a big way and the Celtics pressed the "I give a fuck" button on defense. The main reason for the win, however, was that in what was either a case of the paradigm finally shifting or merely a temporary case of lucidity, Doc Rivers actually put Al and Perk on the floor together and left them the game. This momentous event first got underway around minute 8 of the 2nd quarter, and for the record, after months of hearing Doc claim that he couldn't play these two together because they "clog the lanes" for Ricky and Pierce, the first basket scored in the new Al/Perk-era was made by Ricky driving to the basket. Way to go Doc.
As for the others, Delonte played well, Pierce nailed some ice-cold 4th quarter shit that almost made up for him single handedly losing the 76ers game, and Scalabrine played the kind of physical clumsy honky defense on KG that was required to shut the Big Ticket down in the 4th. That's right, you can read it again, the last part is not satire.
So tonight might have been a great step forward or just a blip on the radar, but either way, we finally saw that the blueprint CAN work if it's allowed to be put into practice. Al and Perk need and deserve time on the court, and every minute we waste playing malcontent fucks and washed up veterans is a pointless kick in the balls for our future. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of getting kicked in the balls. Let's hope Doc is too.
Player of the Game - Kendrick Perkins. 17/6, and make no mistake, we would not have won without him. From his momentum turning offensive rebound (against Garnett, no less) and put back in the 4th, to the several big moves around the basket that resulted in 8-11 shooting, to thoroughly befuddling Greg Dickerson with the comment "we all put our shorts on the same way" in the post-game interview, Kendrick did it all. Yes, he's my favorite, but fuck it, he deserves it tonight.
Hamcock - Mark Blount. It seems abundantly clear that this useless fuckhead is on the way out, and tonight most likely amounted to the final nail in the coffin. For some strange reason Doc actually put him on the court in the 2nd quarter, and he was greeted with the sort of lusty booing usually reserved for Cryin' Brian Scalaburine. With any luck, some disgusted group of Timberwolves fans will soon be emulating their call.
Quote of the Night - "I like him too but he's been... dormant," Bob Cousy on the topic of Al Jefferson, punctuated by Tommy yelling "no!" between each syllable of the sentence. I'm not much in the way of a family man, but if we look at the FSN team as a gathering of relatives at Thanksgiving, surely Tommy is the drunken, control-freak patriarch, ie: the malignant ogre who rules the broadcast through sheer belligerence and a complete lack of shame. Couse, on the other hand, is like some kind of dead-eyed grandfather who sits around waiting to die, shattering the illusions of others with the careless power of truth. "Why didn't little Johnny make the baseball team?" Because he's a sissy. "Why is Sally single again this year?" Because she's ugly and no man will have her. "Why is that handsome young physician crying while watching the Celtics game?" Because he is a masochist and he writes about this crappy team for a much-maligned blog.
Note to self - possible career change, look into being a Fox Fan-Caster.
Although it ended on a note of almost epic triumph, the game was actually pretty weird. Similar to the theory of special relativity which posits that any vantage point in spacetime is equally valid to any other, (and thus, illogical observations are not contradictory) two observers in relative motion would have experienced this game as the Celtics playing at their very worst and very best. Things were ugly to start, they melted down completely at the end of the first quarter and trailed by nine at the half. During this stretch Doc played every player he had and this developed into the usual discombobulated disaster we've come to expect.
In the second half, however, Pierce came alive in a big way and the Celtics pressed the "I give a fuck" button on defense. The main reason for the win, however, was that in what was either a case of the paradigm finally shifting or merely a temporary case of lucidity, Doc Rivers actually put Al and Perk on the floor together and left them the game. This momentous event first got underway around minute 8 of the 2nd quarter, and for the record, after months of hearing Doc claim that he couldn't play these two together because they "clog the lanes" for Ricky and Pierce, the first basket scored in the new Al/Perk-era was made by Ricky driving to the basket. Way to go Doc.
As for the others, Delonte played well, Pierce nailed some ice-cold 4th quarter shit that almost made up for him single handedly losing the 76ers game, and Scalabrine played the kind of physical clumsy honky defense on KG that was required to shut the Big Ticket down in the 4th. That's right, you can read it again, the last part is not satire.
So tonight might have been a great step forward or just a blip on the radar, but either way, we finally saw that the blueprint CAN work if it's allowed to be put into practice. Al and Perk need and deserve time on the court, and every minute we waste playing malcontent fucks and washed up veterans is a pointless kick in the balls for our future. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of getting kicked in the balls. Let's hope Doc is too.
Player of the Game - Kendrick Perkins. 17/6, and make no mistake, we would not have won without him. From his momentum turning offensive rebound (against Garnett, no less) and put back in the 4th, to the several big moves around the basket that resulted in 8-11 shooting, to thoroughly befuddling Greg Dickerson with the comment "we all put our shorts on the same way" in the post-game interview, Kendrick did it all. Yes, he's my favorite, but fuck it, he deserves it tonight.
Hamcock - Mark Blount. It seems abundantly clear that this useless fuckhead is on the way out, and tonight most likely amounted to the final nail in the coffin. For some strange reason Doc actually put him on the court in the 2nd quarter, and he was greeted with the sort of lusty booing usually reserved for Cryin' Brian Scalaburine. With any luck, some disgusted group of Timberwolves fans will soon be emulating their call.
Quote of the Night - "I like him too but he's been... dormant," Bob Cousy on the topic of Al Jefferson, punctuated by Tommy yelling "no!" between each syllable of the sentence. I'm not much in the way of a family man, but if we look at the FSN team as a gathering of relatives at Thanksgiving, surely Tommy is the drunken, control-freak patriarch, ie: the malignant ogre who rules the broadcast through sheer belligerence and a complete lack of shame. Couse, on the other hand, is like some kind of dead-eyed grandfather who sits around waiting to die, shattering the illusions of others with the careless power of truth. "Why didn't little Johnny make the baseball team?" Because he's a sissy. "Why is Sally single again this year?" Because she's ugly and no man will have her. "Why is that handsome young physician crying while watching the Celtics game?" Because he is a masochist and he writes about this crappy team for a much-maligned blog.
Note to self - possible career change, look into being a Fox Fan-Caster.
# posted by Dr. Chestnutt @ 11:15 PM 
