Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Anything Worse Would Be The Knicks
We don't often see the Celtics on the friendly side of a blowout, but it turns out this rarest of occurrences is characterized primarily by lots and lots of Wally Szczerbiak hyper high-fiving. So yes, indeed, tonight we saw plenty of them as the Celtics bested the only team in the league that regularly challenges them for the title of "most gutless." Boston ran and got easy baskets, scoring 71 points in the first half alone, and ended up with 123, or roughly one point for every clumsy reference to the NCAA tournament made by Mike Gorman.
The Knicks, it turns out, are a disaster on a scale normally reserved for the description of ill fated NASA missions. The Marbury/Francis thing is a joke, and Eddie Curry does nothing but justify all of the tasteless "heart probems" puns that some of us more insensitive types have been known to make, repeat, and laugh at. Actually he had 20/8, but he might as well not even be on the floor. What is most bizarre about this team, though, is that all of these former stars and huge talents now just seem so completely anonymous and unremarkable. It's not just that they suck as a team, but each of the individual players seems to have turned into a shitty carbon copy of the next. There is no personality, no distinction, just an endless rotation of players with similar skills and abilities who all seem to have given up long ago. It is incredible to think that we saw $120 million on the floor and the only players that made any kind of impression were Quentyl Woods and David Lee.
But this is not Knicks Doom.
As a Celtics fan it was a difficult game to get anything out of outside of the simple fact that the Celtics are not as bad as the Knicks. Yay. But it was good to see them execute their offense and score all those easy baskets they're supposed to score when Doc Rivers remembers that Danny's "vision" supposedly involved the development of a running game. That this was accomplished largely in the face of defensive indifference is well worth remembering before anyone gets all excited.
We did have a couple moments that were fairly illuminating, if only for how weird this team is - 1) In a cutesy-pooh hall-of-fame nominee moment, we watched as Pierce and Wally kept deferring to the other over who was going to shoot a technical free throw, with Pierce finally convincing Wally to take it, who of course sunk it, while the George and Martha-esque Steve Francis and Jalen Rose looked on with secret envy, seething resentment and quietly breaking hearts. Or so I will pretend. 2) Brian Scalabrine passionately arguing a call with 4:45 left in the game and the Celtics up 37. The quintessential Tommy Point moment. Truly.
On the player side of things, Pierce was solid with 22, Gerald Green had a sick dunk and a nice clock beating 20-footer, and Wally, as mentioned, had a lot of high fives. The bench was okay, but it didn't really matter. Of course, Delonte was a cuddly lil' floor general, even in garbage time when lesser cuddly types would give up and play sloppy, but noooooooooo, Delonte was barking orders and making this young Celtics squad work, and goddammit, that's why he's so fucking wonderful...
So yeah, it was a total blowout. Just goes to prove that even at the bottom of the barrel there is always something beneath you.
Player of the Game - Ryan Gomes. Ryan set the tone early against Curry and Malik Rose, and had a great night overall with 15/13, which is only fitting when one considers that his heavy reliance on smarts and hustle presents him as something of the ultimate anti-Knick. But in a game like this, everyone looks good, so Ryan shouldn't display this award too prominently on his mantle.
Hamcock - Tony Allen. Not only has Tony temporarily lost his title as "Most Likely to embarrass the organization" (to TFTF), but tonight he pissed off the brave few of us who sat through garbage time waiting to see Gerald Green get some fucking points, and instead had to watch Tony "old news" Allen hog the ball. Apparently Tony didn't receive the "no one gives a fuck about you anymore" fax, and so Gerald got basically frozen out in the extended garbage time of the 4th quarter, even after he'd had a productive first half. It's kind of funny watching Gerald dutifully toss the ball into Perk and then scurry away to the corner 3 point line, and kind of sad when you see him never get the ball back.
Quote of the Night - "The all glazed-over team," Mike Gorman describing the Knicks. Heinsohn kept trying to work in comments about the Knicks "eyes misting over" but Gorman nailed it with this far more pithy appellation. Perhaps we can include this with our end of the year "All Gentle" and "All Might Be Gay" teams. It was a solid broadcast night, Tommy's streak of fairly chilled-out games continues, even if we heard him bitch a little about the calls and admit that he didn't want "justice," he simply wanted the calls to go in the Celtics favor. This recap cannot be complete without mentioning that there was some strange, under-explained halftime ceremony featuring a collection of former NBA players that included Heinsohn, Dolph Shayes, Harry "the Horse" Gallatin and Rod Strickland(!). I still have no fucking idea what links these guys together, and they never said why during the broadcast. The REAL All-Glazed Over Team.
The Knicks, it turns out, are a disaster on a scale normally reserved for the description of ill fated NASA missions. The Marbury/Francis thing is a joke, and Eddie Curry does nothing but justify all of the tasteless "heart probems" puns that some of us more insensitive types have been known to make, repeat, and laugh at. Actually he had 20/8, but he might as well not even be on the floor. What is most bizarre about this team, though, is that all of these former stars and huge talents now just seem so completely anonymous and unremarkable. It's not just that they suck as a team, but each of the individual players seems to have turned into a shitty carbon copy of the next. There is no personality, no distinction, just an endless rotation of players with similar skills and abilities who all seem to have given up long ago. It is incredible to think that we saw $120 million on the floor and the only players that made any kind of impression were Quentyl Woods and David Lee.
But this is not Knicks Doom.
As a Celtics fan it was a difficult game to get anything out of outside of the simple fact that the Celtics are not as bad as the Knicks. Yay. But it was good to see them execute their offense and score all those easy baskets they're supposed to score when Doc Rivers remembers that Danny's "vision" supposedly involved the development of a running game. That this was accomplished largely in the face of defensive indifference is well worth remembering before anyone gets all excited.
We did have a couple moments that were fairly illuminating, if only for how weird this team is - 1) In a cutesy-pooh hall-of-fame nominee moment, we watched as Pierce and Wally kept deferring to the other over who was going to shoot a technical free throw, with Pierce finally convincing Wally to take it, who of course sunk it, while the George and Martha-esque Steve Francis and Jalen Rose looked on with secret envy, seething resentment and quietly breaking hearts. Or so I will pretend. 2) Brian Scalabrine passionately arguing a call with 4:45 left in the game and the Celtics up 37. The quintessential Tommy Point moment. Truly.
On the player side of things, Pierce was solid with 22, Gerald Green had a sick dunk and a nice clock beating 20-footer, and Wally, as mentioned, had a lot of high fives. The bench was okay, but it didn't really matter. Of course, Delonte was a cuddly lil' floor general, even in garbage time when lesser cuddly types would give up and play sloppy, but noooooooooo, Delonte was barking orders and making this young Celtics squad work, and goddammit, that's why he's so fucking wonderful...
So yeah, it was a total blowout. Just goes to prove that even at the bottom of the barrel there is always something beneath you.
Player of the Game - Ryan Gomes. Ryan set the tone early against Curry and Malik Rose, and had a great night overall with 15/13, which is only fitting when one considers that his heavy reliance on smarts and hustle presents him as something of the ultimate anti-Knick. But in a game like this, everyone looks good, so Ryan shouldn't display this award too prominently on his mantle.
Hamcock - Tony Allen. Not only has Tony temporarily lost his title as "Most Likely to embarrass the organization" (to TFTF), but tonight he pissed off the brave few of us who sat through garbage time waiting to see Gerald Green get some fucking points, and instead had to watch Tony "old news" Allen hog the ball. Apparently Tony didn't receive the "no one gives a fuck about you anymore" fax, and so Gerald got basically frozen out in the extended garbage time of the 4th quarter, even after he'd had a productive first half. It's kind of funny watching Gerald dutifully toss the ball into Perk and then scurry away to the corner 3 point line, and kind of sad when you see him never get the ball back.
Quote of the Night - "The all glazed-over team," Mike Gorman describing the Knicks. Heinsohn kept trying to work in comments about the Knicks "eyes misting over" but Gorman nailed it with this far more pithy appellation. Perhaps we can include this with our end of the year "All Gentle" and "All Might Be Gay" teams. It was a solid broadcast night, Tommy's streak of fairly chilled-out games continues, even if we heard him bitch a little about the calls and admit that he didn't want "justice," he simply wanted the calls to go in the Celtics favor. This recap cannot be complete without mentioning that there was some strange, under-explained halftime ceremony featuring a collection of former NBA players that included Heinsohn, Dolph Shayes, Harry "the Horse" Gallatin and Rod Strickland(!). I still have no fucking idea what links these guys together, and they never said why during the broadcast. The REAL All-Glazed Over Team.
# posted by Dr. Chestnutt @ 11:30 PM 
