Watching the Celtics is not always easy, even now. However, in past years, it was much harder at times. There were great moments to be sure. My hatred for the Pacers at one point could not have been consumed by Emperor Palpatine himself. We played the Pacers a couple of years in a row in the playoffs and the combination of Reggie Miller and Jermaine O'Neal proved too much for Pierce to overcome on at least one occassion. I struggled watching my team lose a game. Every game meant so much to me, and momentum swung in my head much more heavily than reality warranted. I grew to believe, somehow, that a team featuring Tony Delk at point, a combination of Battie and LaFrentz at the bigs, and three point shooting from Walter McCarty, who couldn't even get on the court in Phoenix with Nash running the point just a few years later, was capable of winning a title. Ifelt that the 28 points it seemed that Pierce posted nightly would be enough to overcome every obstacle. Obviously, I was wrong. I was young.
As I grew older, the Celtics success waned some. Antoine Walker came back and helped push us to the playoffs. However, what would come would horrify and sicken one who had tied his beating heart to his team. I suffered through one of the worst seasons in Celtics history. I couldn't even bear to watch Pierce have to beat triple teams at times to try to get a bucket. My superhero was human, and didn't have even the will to try to carry a team this bad. Jefferson had not blossomed, Green couldn't play a lick of defense, and Telfair had been an epic failure. The only hope that sprung from this season was that we had a 25% chance of winning the lottery and getting the number one overall pick which we would have surely spent on Kevin Durant. Having KD and Pierce team up would have been a magical process to watch, but what would unfold, I believe, was much better.
We lost the lottery. We failed miserably. We didn't get the number one overall pick, or the two, or the three. We were stuck at fourth. As lucky as the Bulls have been in recent years at winning in the lottery, we were unlucky for one year. My hopes were crushed. My heart broken, I turned my attention towards other things in life. I couldn't bear to watch. Then news broke through. We had traded our draft pick and some other assets to the Sonics for Ray Allen. At first, I didn't know what to think. It didn't make sense to me to have two potent scorers together in the lineup when we didn't have a post presence other than a still developing Jefferson. We were so young, as well, besides Pierce and Allen. While I had faith in West, I felt we could do better at point. Then the mother of all trades happened, all thanks to Kevin McHale, a former Celt great. We traded away a great young nucleus for Kevin Garnett, and immediately validated the move for Allen. The only question to be heard was whether this team could learn to play together, but I was confident. Garnett was lauded for being so unselfish, and Allen had worked well with Rashard Lewis, even if the team had had success. To me, this was still Pierce's team, so it all worked out.
The season which would unfold was one of the most magical that I will surely ever experience in my life. I watched them step up again and again against every challenge and topple every challenger. I watched them defeat Detroit. I saw them send Lebron packing. Even the West's challengers were no match for my Celtics team. Our defense smothered everyone into submission while we got a steady flow of points from our Big Three. Even if our bench was completely untested, as were Rondo and Perk, it was enough. We were growing together.
The turning point of the season came in a game against Phoenix. The Suns had grown quite an attitude, and we had played a week maybe earlier and Phoenix had played very chippily. I wanted the C's to pound this team into submission on their homecourt. To start off the game, I believe Bell got into a scuffle with Rondo, and Rondo fought back. It was a great moment from an avid supporter. It was Rondo's first coming out party. He became a man at that moment. The Celtics went on to completely throttle the Suns high-flying offense and win the game handily.
Our next opponent came a couple days later. It was none other than the Houston Rockets, whom were sporting a 22 game winning streak at the time. I felt it appropriate the Celtics would be the ones to stomp on them on their home court. Once again, the Celtics stepped up. At this point, I knew that we were the best team in the league.
The playoffs have been well documented for last year. It meant a lot to a lot of NBA fans in general, to watch Garnett, Pierce, and Allen get their titles. They did it in dramatic fashion, as well, with 7 game series against the Hawks, Cavs, and Pistons. Garnett and Allen struggled early, and Pierce stepped up. Then came a great finals against the Lakers, in which Pierce completely dominated the world's best player in Kobe Bryant.
Posey, our team's second best player in the playoffs, left that offseason, as did Brown, whom got us over the hump of Detroit while Allen and Garnett struggled. Questions of our bench loomed as we started off our title defense. It was impossible to believe, but this season came to mean as much as last season. Last year had been tough. We had our struggles, and our fight and determination got us over it. It was easy to label because of the well documented winning struggles of our Big Three. However, this season redefined fight. Early on, we dominated. However, it seemed the spirit was gone from our team. I really do believe it. We seemed disinterested. Our defense grew sloppier. We played more one on one basketball. I grew frustrated with the style of play we were exhibiting. At some point, someone figured out we weren't unbeatable with how we were playing. We struggled some, enough, to light a little bit of a spark.
Then the unspeakable happened. Garnett went out with an injury a week and a half before I would be traveling to Boston to see my beloved team. It was diagnosed at a week to two weeks, and it became clear it would be the latter, but I still hoped to see Kevin play against Cleveland. We played two, maybe four games before we came home to host the Cavs. We found our identity much quicker than I could have imagined. The game started off slowly enough. Neither team found a rhythm to start off the game, but the Celtics were establishing themselves inside. Then Lebron got on a breakaway. There was no way we could reach him. He reared back to shut up our crowd... and missed. The crowd exploded. You know you are great when you play away and miss a dunk and set the crowd on fire. It rattled him. I am sure of it. The unrattleable James was rattled, and went on to make three or four mistakes, including a steal by Rondo which turned into a highlight play on the other side of the court. We were off and running. We won the game easily. We had overcome our first major test since the injury of Garnett, and we had done it impressively. The loss the following day against the Cavs was easily dismissed as fatigue while playing against a very good team.
We had our struggles, but we held on to the 2 seed to start the playoffs. We had to play against an upstart Bulls team which had played very well down the stretch. I dismissed this team I had watched at times this season, believing a four game sweep would be a kind result. Boy was I in for a shock. The Bulls came out like Rocky Balboa, taking every punch the Celtics landed and just kept coming. Gordon and Rose couldn't be stopped. Either could Rondo, however. We fought and fought and fought and refused to go down on our homecourt. Then Pierce missed a free throw to ice the game. We went to overtime and lost, even though Rose fouled out. Stunned into silence, I lost faith in a series win based off of one game. It was back to the little kid days for me, but they weren't there to stay. Even when we showed our champion's poise and clinched a hard fought win in game 2, I didn't gain any faith in our team. A game 3 romp did little to improve my mood, but this was probably because I missed the game. Our bench just appeared to be no help, and Pierce didn't have the same fire he had last season. I didn't think we could do it. We should have won game 4. We didn't execute to end the game. The funny thing is that the Bulls shouldn't have let us be in it, either. Colossal coaching failures resulted in us staying the game, but we threw it away with a coaching failure of our own. Game 5 became another slugfest, as both teams just rained shot after impossible shot. The willing suspension of belief was not enough to believe this series. Game 6 was a game we should not have been in again, and most certainly should have won if not for Rivers for once showing coaching errors he had not shown since against Atlanta in the first round the year before. Tony Allen played in consecutive offensive series down the strech, as did Scalabrine on defensive series. A seventh game would certainly cause hearts to stop beating, but after 3 overtimes, we were headed that way.
Our whole season came down to this game. Last season we had obstacles, but this year we had the Himalayas. Garnett out. Posey gone. Powe out. No bench help, and all this against a lively Bulls team that believed it would win. I hated Vinny Del Negro's whining. I hated Noah's hair. I hated that he had stolen a pass from the Finals MVP of last year, taken it downcourt, and caused a frustration foul from an exhausted Pierce, causing him to foul out. I was ready for the dogfight of the century. It turned out to be something different, and more painful. We dominated from the opening tip. However, for three quarters, the refs kept the Bulls in. When they gained momentum, the refs switched their favor. It was weird. NBA officiating is so scripted. We finally showed our championship pedigree, and sent those mongrels packing. We finally grabbed ahold of our destiny and wiped the filth off of our shoes. This series win validated our entire season. We had overcome an unbelievable obstacle, and had sealed a legitimate memory of this title defense.
Hopefully, it's not over. We are down 2-1 right now against the Orlando Magic. We play tonight in Orlando, which I will miss. After hosing the Magic in game 2, they responded by hosing us in game 3. We desperately need a win tonight to grab homecourt advantage. This team has been through so much in the past two years. Some would say too much. Too much of this pounding causes normal mortals to crumble. I have faith, though. Faith in a collection of individuals that has been through it all. A team full of fighters that will refuse, just as they have time and time again, to go out quietly. They pay homage to the heroic deeds of old, and even if the stakes are nowhere near those of the 300, I believe they have every inch of that fire in them. This team, simply said, cannot go down to a Magic team with no relative experience, with no real talent, and with a headcase of a coach who makes me ashamed for basketball. They have no charisma outside of Howard, who has lost some of his sheen with his elbow to Sam Dalembert's head. This team, like animals coming out of hibernation in the spring every year, will simply come back tonight and take the wind out of the Magic's sails.
Even if the Celtics fall in this series, it will not be without a fight. This season has been defined by that. Even if we fail to win a championship, this title defense has never been matched. The fire we have shown is unlike that of any team in history, and my memories of this season will likely match those of last season's magical run.
Now let's beat on some Magic.
1 comment:
Paul Pierce is a freaking man. We win tonight by 5
Post a Comment