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Celtics-Bulls VI: Battle of the Century

I left my friend’s place after Game 6 of Celtics-Bulls last night, exhausted and in a malaise.  My memory of what had just transpired — usually crystal clear — was so clouded and fragmented, my thoughts so blurred, that I had trouble finding a subway station I’ve used countless times.

After making the 30-minute journey back home — during which I must have looked like a zombie to strangers around me — I watched highlights of the game.  Actually strike that, highlights of the battle.  Because let’s face it, this war of attrition was the closest mind-body struggle between two adversaries one will ever see outside of the ring.

There was Rondo and Hinrich’s undercard.  The blood gushing from Pierce’s nose.   Ray’s 51 (FIFTY-ONE) on the scorecard.  Miller’s revenge.  Salmons’ onslaught.  Baby’s fadeaway.  The ice in Ray’s veins.  Pierce’s almost-steal and knockout of the challenger.  Noah’s indescribable flurry to stagger the champs.  Rose’s KOS (knockout swat).

I watched all this for a second and third time, and tried to gather my thoughts.  Wasn’t happening.  Tried to sleep.  Nope.

I turned on the TV, and what happened to be on HBO?  A documentary of the “Thrilla in Manila” between Ali and Frazier.  It was an intense and jarring recounting of possibly the greatest fight ever.   It was also the only suitable way to give some perspective to a mind-blowing basketball game.

It’s often too easy to get swept up in The Moment, and everyone — from players to media to fans — is predisposed to this phenomenon from time to time.  It’s human nature: When we witness something extraordinary, precedents and past-happenings become puny in comparison.  Typically though, upon reflection, the grandeur of an amazing occurrence in sports gets reduced once The Moment has passed, nerves have settled, and rational thought has reentered the equation.

Let’s not mince words: Ali-Frazier III has stood the test of time as a seminal moment in sports that will never be matched.  Just seeing Frazier, Frazier’s son, Ali’s team, writers and historians chronicling this epic fight, you can sense that wherever they were on that day in 1975, they have remained since in spirit.

For 14 rounds in sweltering heat, two of the world’s finest fighters waged a war that nearly killed them both.  There is no more telling quote than from Frazier, who when asked if he would have risked his life to go out for the 15th and final round, said, “Yeah.”

When the documentary ended, it was just after two in the morning, and I was finally lucid.  I realized that Ali-Frazier comparisons get thrown around FAR too generously, and that there will never be a sporting event — in boxing or otherwise — than could garner such a comparison.

But as a metaphorical script?  That’s a different story.  That’s where Celtics-Bulls VI steps in.

Early in the fourth quarter Chicago went on a run, unleashing a series of blows that had the champs staggering (similar to Frazier’s middle-round assault on Ali).  The Celtics took the Bulls’ punches, and returned in kind, with a crowd-silencing 18-0 run that turned a 10-point deficit into an 8-point lead (akin to Ali’s blistering sustained attack in rounds 12 to 14).

Naturally there are inconsistencies, no more significant than the fact that the champs lost the game whereas the champ won/survived the fight.

But a series of plays in the last minute of the third overtime truly gave this basketball game the feel of a heavyweight bout — epitomizing the desperate chaos that ensues in the waning seconds of a final round.

With the game tied at 123, Pierce jumped a pass and knocked the ball into the backcourt, seemingly destined for some series-clinching thunder.  But he stumbled at midcourt and the ball careened out of bounds, giving it back to the Bulls.

Then, after a defensive stand, Pierce had the ball back in his hands at the top of the key.  He went to drive left, and feeling the double team coming, tried to whip a pass to Brian Scalabrine in the corner.

It was then that Joakim Noah let loose the proverbial final combination: First he intercepted the ball and tapped it towards center court.  Next he picked it up and dribbled the rest of the floor — trailed by an exhausted Pierce the entire way.  By the time Pierce caught up to the rumbling seven-footer, he had thrown down a tremendous flush and drawn the sixth and final foul on the C’s captain.  He nailed the free throw to boot, putting the finishing touches on the finishing barrage.

So here we are, six games, seven overtimes and one epic script into a bona fide first-round heavyweight basketball bout.

Game 7 is Saturday in Boston, a game that will double as the most significant affair ever contested at such an early juncture of the never-ending tournament that is the NBA playoffs.

Everyone who’s anyone will be there for the epic finale.  Maybe even Kevin Garnett.

And I’m thinking he may not be in a suit.

Celtics Ticket-less for Playoffs

Tom Brady might be sitting courtside at TD Banknorth Garden on Saturday — when the Celtics officially begin their title defense — but unlike last postseason, he will not be the most important guy in street clothes next to the Celtics bench.

Unfortunately, that honor will go to the Big Ticket.

What many feared last month after Kevin Garnett’s brief and unsuccessful return from a knee strain is now a bitter reality: The MVP of the Celtics, Mr. Anything’s Possible himself, is out indefinitely.

We have all witnessed how the fire burns inside this unparalleled athlete. We saw him spill his guts every night for 12 years in Minnesota. We were awed when he brought his act to Boston and did the same over a surreal 97-game stretch last season; a series of extended encores punctuated by a world championship. And we were grateful when a long-suffering basketball town was returned to its rightful perch atop the hoops world.

Now, with 14 years and well over a thousand games under his belt, it appears his heart and passion for the game have proven to be more enduring than the knees entrusted with carrying all that extra weight, literal and otherwise.

There are still no reports of structural damage in his injured right knee, just a career’s worth of wear and tear of the highest degree. (Seems like the term “wear and tear” grossly understates the matter, no?) He hasn’t been officially ruled out of the entire playoffs, but it’s probably wise to keep expectations at a minimum going forward.

It’s tough not to be down at this point. When KG was healthy, the defending champs — spurred by an historic 27-2 start — were the story of the league.

Yet not long after that run, the main plot of 2008-09 season shifted away from the Celtics and towards Lebron and Kobe, Cleveland and LA.  Garnett went down, the Cavs were unbeatable at home (falling only to LA), and the Lakers had wrapped up the West before MLK Day.

While Cavs-Lakers was accordingly billed as the surest Finals since, well Lakers-Celtics, and would’ve had a good chance of happening even if KG was healthy, it’s a damned shame the Green won’t get a real shot at defending their crown. Anyone who tells you Cavs-Celtics would have been a foregone conclusion with Garnett back is full of it.

Garnett’s loss is a striking blow to a team that wore the championship belt and bullseye all year, battled multiple injuries throughout, integrated new players, and still emerged with 62 victories. It was an admirable first chapter to the team’s first title defense since 1987. Now, with the end game pretty much determined, all that’s left to see is how it concludes.

I don’t think it’s optimistic to believe the Celtics will fulfill their end of the bargain and give Lebron the rematch he’s wanted — albeit under different circumstances.

This team has dealt with a ton of adversity.  In addition to Garnett being sidelined for 25 games, key reserves Leon Powe (12 games), Tony Allen (36 games) and Brian Scalabrine (43 games) all missed significant time.  That enabled Glen Davis to grow into his skin, and helped accelerate the transition for newcomers Mikki Moore and Stephon Marbury.

Add to that Rajon Rondo’s emergence as an elite point guard and Kendrick Perkins’  continued development (both enter the playoffs as unquestionably better players than last year), and there is a solid and experienced supporting cast around the now Big Two, who are not to be forgotten.

Paul Pierce and Ray Allen are among the proudest players in the game, and will make it their personal mission to carry this team as far as they can.  Even with rings — and Pierce with a Finals MVP — both can vividly recall the days when they were some combination of underestimated and underappreciated.

Allen has been channeling Jesus Shuttlesworth since last year’s Eastern Conference finals.  He will take it up a notch.

As for Pierce, let’s just say a lot of people didn’t take him seriously last year when he proclaimed he was the best player in the world.  He may have overstepped a bit, but after manning up and dismissing Lebron and Kobe on the biggest stage, his point held water.

For the two most important months of the 2007-08 season, Paul Pierce was the best player in the world.  He’s always relished having something to prove, the greats always do.  Now he does (again).

The Celtics likely won’t make it back to the promised land without their leader, but that doesn’t change the fact that the belt is theirs until somebody rips it off them.

Knowing this team and its coach, knowing Allen and the reigning Finals MVP, I wouldn’t bank on anyone not named Lebron or Kobe taking the honors.

Garnett and Marbury: Déjà Vu for the Celts?

I’m an optimist.   Prefer to glean the positives from what might otherwise be construed as a negative situation.

I can’t help it.  Optimism is entrenched in my sports psyche.  It’s the reason I grew up believing every year was THE year for the Red Sox, the reason I stayed sane in New York post-XLII.

So while many view Kevin Garnett’s (temporary) absence and Stephon Marbury’s (probable) arrival as possible death blows to Boston’s chances of a repeat, I see a pair of blessings in disguise — reinforced by a recurring sense of déjà vu.

The knee injury Garnett sustained in a Feb. 19 game at Utah sent shock waves through Celtics nation, and justifiably so.  The fact that he injured the knee on a non-contact maneuver — in this case, going up for an alley-oop — was a major cause for concern.  Ligament and tendon damage can often result from slightly mistimed lateral or vertical movements.  Fortunately he merely strained a muscle behind the knee, an injury he could have played through.  And he tried to.

Needless to say Danny Ainge did not allow that to happen and the team is taking no chances going forward, which means the Big Ticket will likely sit out another eight or so games in addition to the pair he’s already missed.  Does this scenario sound familiar?  It should, as the same thing happened around the same time last year.  On Jan. 25 Garnett strained an abdominal muscle and missed nine games between Jan. 27 and Feb. 19. The Celtics won seven of them.

He returned healthier and refreshed.  You know the rest.

It’s well documented how KG only has one speed: turbo.  To him cruise control is synonymous with being stuck in the breakdown lane.  When you consider that even with the respite he still played 97 games last year (second only to the 100 games he played in 2003-04), it might have been wise to shelf him for a period of time regardless.  That his freakish body has again sounded a faint warning bell might indeed be that blessing in disguise.  It surely was last year.

Unless he reaggravates the injury down the stretch (which would be quite a pessimistic way of looking at things), this mandated down time will end up paying great dividends when the Celtics embark on what’s sure to be another deep playoff run.

As for Marbury, call him what you want — bad teammate, enigma, self-centered, classless — and the New York media certainly has, but the man really has everything to gain from joining the Celtics.  The Celtics, in turn, have pretty much nothing to lose.  If he works out, super.  If not, they can cut ties while assuming minimal financial loss.

Remember Sam Cassell?

While Cassell’s career accomplishments overshadow Marbury’s, speaking purely from a style of play and team chemistry standpoint the two are mirror images of one another.  In their heyday both players were All-Star caliber, shoot-first point guards with a surplus of hubris.

Last March Cassell came into a close-knit and role-defined locker room, ball(s)-in-hand.  The fear was his ego and chucking mentality would be injurious.  After hitting some big shots in the regular season and again in the first round against Atlanta, the chucking became a problem against Cleveland and Cassell played sparingly for the remainder of the playoffs.  He did not, however, threaten the team chemistry.  In that regard he put his ego aside in the name of winning a ring.

Cassell — at age 38 — had nothing to prove except that he could become an auxiliary piece on a championship team.

Marbury, on the other hand, is playing for a lot more.  He wants to win his first playoff series en route to his first title.  At 32, he has a golden opportunity to lock up a final big contract.  A successful run with Boston and he’ll be in position for one last substantial payday.

Above all, maybe, he wants to stick it to New York.  To the front office he believes treated him unfairly.  To the teammates he thinks tossed him under the bus.  To the fans who turned on him.  And to the media, which has been unrelenting with its venom-injected headlines and protracted condemnations of the man they once deemed “Starbury”.

He has a beef to settle with New York, and what better place to do it than the one place that despises anything and everything “New Yaaawk”?

Irony would have it that the Celtics and Knicks have developed one of the coldest rivalries in the league, if you can call it that.  (A rivalry, that is.)  The teams nearly came to blows last season when Quentin Richardson and Paul Pierce were ejected from a game at Madison Square Garden.  Afterwards Richardson fanned the flames with some choice postgame remarks.  They have yet to make amends.

Richardson has had no qualms about voicing his opinion on the Marbury matter as well. This past November he ripped Marbury after the disgruntled star refused to play when the team was shorthanded and calling for his services.

In response to the incident, Knicks president Donnie Walsh formally banished Marbury from the team on Dec. 1.  Add it up and seems like the enemy of Stephon Marbury’s enemy is about to become his new friend.  That should immediately help the chemistry-building process with the Celtics.

Given all that, who really thinks the guy is going to ride into Boston on his high horse and reprise his role as a defiant, obstinate distraction?  Not I.

But take that with a grain of salt.

I am, after all, a self-professed optimist.

Celtics Maintaining Pace

Here we are, just past the midway point of the 2008-09 NBA season and the Celtics are on an identical pace with last year’s 66-win championship team. For the second straight campaign, at the 46-game mark the Green have 37 wins to show for.

Time to put to rest all those burning questions about the New Three’s drive and desire to repeat, wouldn’t ya say?

Sure, they have experienced peaks and valleys that are atypical of a team defending a title. The peak was an 18-game winning streak. The valley — a stretch during which they dropped seven of nine, including four straight — had many asserting the Celtics were suddenly not just mortal, but beatable.

Take a more detailed look at the circumstances surrounding both the streak and the lull and it becomes glaringly apparent that this team has few concerns going forward (other than the race with Cleveland for home court, but that’s a story for another day…). Consider the following points.

1) The Celtics tied for the fifth-longest winning streak in NBA history by winning 18 games in a row. Of the six other teams that won at least 18 straight, not a single one did so in the year of a title defense. In fact, other than the Rockets (who won 22 consecutive games last year), every other team on that list enjoyed its historic winning streak during a championship season. It’s one thing to be that dominant over an extended stretch that ultimately ends with a ring; it’s a whole other thing to do it the year after winning a ring, considering every opposing team has your name circled in red on its schedule.

2) The bad run began on Christmas Day in Los Angeles, which marked the first time the Celtics and Lakers squared off since Boston routed LA in six games in last June’s NBA Finals. The game was unequivocally a must-win for the Lakers — particularly given that they were (interestingly?) awarded home court. Another loss to the Celtics in front of a national audience would have been catastrophic for LA.

3) Naturally, playing the Lakers on Christmas was important to the Celtics as well, and after letting the game slip away in the final 90 seconds it was clear they left Tinseltown lacking their usual heightened focus. That their next three games were all on the west coast didn’t help things. A holiday swing out west is always tough. A 1-3 trip after an 18-game unbeaten streak should be chalked up as rigors of the business, not general cause for alarm.

4) When all was said and done, the Celtics were forced to play nine games in 16 days through the heart of the holiday season, bookending the Lakers game with a January 9 showdown in Cleveland, which they lost handily. Of those nine games, all but two were on the road, culminating with three games in four days at the end. Exhaustion can even set in on a warrior like Kevin Garnett.

5) Look at how they’ve responded over the two weeks since the Cavs game: Eight wins in a row with an average margin of victory over 16 points; home-and-home sweeps of Toronto and New Jersey; road victories in Miami and Orlando; a pair of beatings in Boston of the Suns and Mavericks. The recurring theme throughout those contests has been a return of the defensive intensity that defined the team in its trek to a 17th title and beyond.

Between an arduous slate of games over the holidays and a general lack of any legitimate down time thus far — the Celtics have played four more games than Cleveland, and three more than the Lakers and Magic — the champs have not been afforded any breaks from the schedule makers, which makes their current body of work all the more remarkable.

Despite not having someone locked into the role of sixth man like James Posey was last year, Doc Rivers has again managed to stay true to his promise of keeping the stars fresh for the playoffs, as Garnett (32.5 minutes per game), Paul Pierce (36.5) and Ray Allen (36.3) are all right around their average minutes from last year.

Eddie House, Leon Powe and Glen Davis have become interchangeable parts off the bench (depending on matchups), and the rotation has worked well. Additional reinforcements could also be on the way. If the Knicks can negotiate a buyout with Stephon Marbury, there’s a good chance the former All-Star will end up in green. Marbury or not, it’s widely anticipated that Danny Ainge will bring in a veteran to provide more depth and experience for the playoffs.

Bottom line is halfway through the season the Celtics are still the team to beat and will remain so for the duration. They are a cool 35-2 in games on either side of the slump and are as healthy, hungry and happy as ever.

What more can you ask for?