The Square Life

Last night, while in my living room watching Game 4 of the NBA Finals, something very special happened. For the first time since Michael Jordan was still a Bull, I was completely enamored by an NBA Finals game. But it didn’t start that way. A game that began so crummy, yet ended so beautifully, reminded me why I love sports.

(Did you watch last night’s game?! If not, avoid reading another word, and somehow find a way to watch the game.)

Anyone who has been reading my blog (all five of you) knows that I don’t exactly care for Kobe Bryant. What had made me even more annoyed than the player himself, was that the media was inexplicably singing his praise like they were hoping to get him to go the prom with them. And to make matters absolutely ridiculous, they were even crowning him Michael Jordan Jr. Mark Jackson from ABC was saying that Kobe was without a doubt, every bit as good as Michael. They then followed his statement by comparing stats (as if stats could ever show how dominant Michael ever was!!!!) of the two shooting guards. Somehow, ABC was under the assumption that one MVP award was as good as five, and three championships (in which Shaq-not Kobe-was the MVP) is equal to six (in which Michael was the undoubted of MVP of all six). Dumbfounding.

Well, then the series began. The team (Boston) with more heart and grit won the first two games convincingly, while Kobe whined and moped all over the court and to his teammates. If you haven’t read Curt Schilling’s recent blogs about Kobe’s cryptic behavior in game 2, check it out here: http://38pitches.com/2008/06/09/manny-jd-papi-lester-and-the-nba-finals/. And check out the Sports Guys comments on the same here: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080611. The MJ/Kobe comparisons seemed to be cooling. Then the game went to LA.

Kobe had a solid game in Game 3, and thankfully for him, Garnett and Pierce appeared to have been kidnapped and replaced by two crappy look-a-likes. And, once again, this apparently meant that Kobe was MJ. Anyone not drinking the Kobe Kool-aid (including myself and anyone else who is not likely to buy into every wind of propaganda) simply weren’t buying it. But alas, what can you do? Piss and moan like Kobe? Maybe. But my wife stopped listening to me after the Lakers/Jazz series, so I kept quiet.

Then last night happened. The first few minutes of the game reminded me of my hay-days playing Tecmo NBA on basketball, when I figured out how to beat the computer by like 80 points. The Lakers were absolutely throttling the Celtics. It wasn’t even close. After one quarter, the Lakers were up by a record 21 points, but the game didn’t even feel that close. It was ugly. In the second quarter the C’s starting making it look respectable here and there, but after an ugly-as-I’ll-get-out three from Farmar at the end of the third quarter, the Lakers had a commanding 18 point lead at the break. At home, were they are undefeated these playoffs, no less.

(It’s important to note that I’m not just a Laker hater. I am, but I am also a Celtics fan. I even have a hat to prove it. No, I won’t claim they’re my favorite team, but as my wife can attest, I really like these guys; the individual players on the Celtics team, and the team as a whole. Honestly. Anyway…)

I love my wife. I was, to be frank, loud last night. I really wanted Boston to take this one, and all signs pointed to a big defeat. She was obviously dismayed. I mean, the Celtics aren’t even my team! But rather than talk down to me or call me a lunatic, she left the room to work on some project of her own. For that, I will alwyas be appreciative. Anyway, my point was, by the second half I was uptight and moody. And vocal. My neighbors can attest to that.

The third quarter seemed to be going well for the Celtics, but about half-way through the Lakers were up by twenty again. It was weird, though. Something kept me from tuning the game out. Why? The Celtics were playing like crap, but somehow they stayed within shooting distance of the game. They simply pulled their sleeves up, focused in, and went to battle. The Lakers, a team that feeds off of glamour and clout, began to slowly dwindle under the intense pressure being applied by Boston.

And they finally started trusting small ball. There were a lot of players that stepped it up big last night, but the two reserves James Posey and Eddie House were huge, in that they effectively spread out the floor and gave the big three room to prove their value. And they hit some seriously clutch shots!

The fourth quarter was almost surreal. It was a pure battle. The Lakers decided they were done screwing around, but they seemed surprised to see that there was no let up in these Celtics. When I realized that 1) Ray Allen was not going to come out of the game, 2) Paul Pierce was going to guard Kobe like his life depended on it every possession, and 3) Garnett had decided he was done shrinking from big late-game situations, I knew this was going to end well. And when Boston finally got ahead with only a couple minutes left, I knew that there was no way that LA was coming back.

Have you noticed I haven’t mentioned anything about what Kobe did in Game 4 yet? There’s a reason for that. He didn’t do much. He had no field goals in the first half, while his teammates stepped up mightily (even though somehow the media gave him credit for everything good that happened in the first half). He had a few assists in the first half, true, but he was NO MVP. So, when the going gets tough, what do you think MJ Jr. did? Well, not much.

You’d have to have watched the game last night to truly appreciate how thoroughly Paul Pierce and The Celtics shut down Kobe Bryant last night. PP was a man on a mission, and in a particularly emblematic play, Paul blocked Kobe clean, grabbed the ball, and threw the ball down to a hustling Allen for an easy lay up. I kept thinking, ‘Kobe can’t be this bad; he’ll make his presence known.’ He did, but not in the way I think his fans thought he would. With the C’s up three with a minute left, Pierce was facing Kobe one on one. In an absolutely hilarious Kobe-like move, Pierce drew a foul from Bryant, forcing Kobe to go on the fringe of a tantrum. Kobe got beat at his own game, and in front of the whole basketball world. A few clutch free throws later, the game was settled, and the Celtics finished the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history. On the road!

I was giddy. I woke up my wife (who had apparently decided that sleep was better than hearing me yell at our TV) to tell her how excited I was. She didn’t get it, but once again, she didn’t belittle me like she could have. Watching the Celtics fight back with more grit and heart than many athletes show in a whole career, I was in sports heaven. ‘That is why I love sports,’ I thought…and probably yelled too. I mean, really it is. Sports can be as moving as almost anything sometimes, and last night was a perfect example of it. There is always hope as long as you’re willing to fight. I know, it’s just a game, but thousands of young Celtics fans learned a valuable lesson last night. The same lesson athletes like MJ taught my generation in the nineties.

Speaking of MJ, my favorite part of Game 4 came this morning when I started to read all the articles about the game. The one commonality of the articles was an idea that I even related to my wife last night (though it is doubtful she cares to remember): Would Michael Jordan have performed like Kobe did last night? No. Would he have let a team come back from 24 down to beat his team in a Finals game? No. At home? NO! Not in a million years. For now, the Kobe/MJ debate is over. And order is restored to the basketball world.

LET'S GO CELTICS!