For the third straight season, the Detroit Pistons will not advance to the NBA Finals.  And, though I am a Celtics fan, this truth is a result not of Boston’s strength, but of Detroit’s weaknesses.  That assertion sounds crazy, I know.  The Pistons have become, along with the Spurs, the league’s standard for consistency since the 2001-02 season, never winning less than 50 games since.  In each of those trips to the playoffs, they have advanced past the first round.  Their current series is their sixth straight Eastern Conference Finals.  In 2004, the team upset the heavily-favored, star-laden Lakers to win the championship.  Despite their experience, history of success, winning mentality, clutch players, and toughness, however, the 2008 version of the Detroit Pistons is not presently constituted to win a championship.

That first paragraph may strike you as ridiculous and unfounded.  But I’m about to top the whole thing in one sentence.  Ready?

The Pistons’ defense isn’t good enough to win this series.

Before you refer me to a psychiatrist, hear me out.  As great as Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton are with a lead in a close game, the duo cannot consistently match baskets with another team’s go-to guy in the final minutes of a game, especially when trailing.  And if you think the Piston’s stellar defense can make up for that weakness, you’re wrong.  Since beating the Lakers in 2004, Detroit’s playoff history has been the history of opposing stars out-performing the Pistons in crunchtime.

 2005 Eastern Conference Finals Against the Miami Heat:

Dwayne Wade scored 42 points in Game 3 and then 36 points in Game 4, both Heat victories.  In Game 5, Wade strained his rib.  Miami still won Game 5, but Wade was out for Game 6, and the Pistons cruised to victory.  With the rib acting up in the final minutes of Game 7, the Heat could not close out the Pistons.  The Pistons were one healthy Dwayne Wade rib away from elimination.  This was the first series in which Detroit’s inability to stop a perimeter playmaker from taking over a game was exposed.

2006 Eastern Conference Finals Against the Miami Heat:

Dwyane Wade didn’t hurt his rib this series, and the Pistons lost in 6.  The inability that had been exposed the year before became the least-talked about trend in the NBA.  This trend continues to this day and remains just as un-talked about.

2007 Eastern Conference Finals Against the Cleveland Cavaliers:

The Pistons won the first two games of this series because of Lebron James’ mistakes, not because of their good defense.  With Lebron learning how to be a clutch player, the Cavs won Game 3 and Game 4 by 6 and 4 points, respectively.  Then, in Game 5, Lebron James essentially uncovered, polished, and put in a museum the fundamental truths Dwayne Wade had exposed.  The Pistons could not stop a star player in a close game.  Lebron scored 48 in the game, and the LAST TWENTY-FIVE Cavalier points.  After breaking the Pistons’ backs, Cleveland cruised to victory in Game 6.

2008 Eastern Conference Semi-Finals Against the Orlando Magic:

All of the first three games are blow-outs—the first two being Detroit wins, the third, Orlando.  In Game 4, however, the Hedo Turkoglu is a missed runner away from winning the game for the Magic.  In Game 5, Turkoglu was almost uncontainable at the end of the Game.  If not for a block by Tayshaun Prince (adding to his collection “clutch blocks” and undeserved reputation for outstanding defense), the Pistons lose this game.  Turkoglu said after the game, “They didn’t do anything that beat us, we just made too many mistakes.”  He was right.  Not being able to defend Dwyane Wade and Lebron James is understandable, if not permissible.  Struggling to defend Hedo Turkoglu is inexcusable for a team with championship aspirations.

The reason Detroit overcame this weakness to win their championship was because Ben Wallace was still an elite defender that would make perimeter players, like Kobe, pay for coming into the lane.  He made the lane his house and protected it like he was in an Under Armour commercial.  In 2005, Ben Wallace was no longer Big Ben and in 2006 he was a shell of his former self.  Now he is unrecognizable.

People have accredited Tayshaun Prince with being a lock-down defender and, to an extent, making the shot-blocking presence at the forward or center position expendable for this team.  I accredit Tayshaun Prince with being the most overrated underrated player in the history of the league.  How many times have you heard that Tayshaun Prince was “underrated” since Detroit won the championship?  Analysts drool over his length and his pretty shot, and seem to take it on faith that he is a lockdown defender.  I admit, his offense has improved dramatically.  But his defensive ability has stagnated.  Everyone, including the entire Detroit coaching staff, seems to forget Prince getting destroyed in fourth quarters for the last three years.  If he hadn’t blocked Reggie Miller that one time, the guys on TNT would be all over him.  Tayshaun Prince is a good player.  But he is not underrated.

The Celtics problem, up until Paul Pierce found himself, was that they had no clutch scorer.  Well, now they do.  And after getting worked by Hedo Turkoglu in the last round, do you really think the Pistons can stop the as-good-as-new Paul Pierce?  I think not.  The Pistons have refused to address this need in the last three seasons.  And if you think Nazr Mohammed and Theo Ratliff count as addressing the need, you need to check your calendar—it’s 2008.

Detroit’s window is not necessarily “running thin,” as Rasheed Wallace said before the Boston series.  If anything, with Rodney Stuckey showing huge potential, the future looks bright for the Pistons.  They will have other years.  And they’re going to need them, because they sure don’t have this one.

This summer, my two best friends and I were talking about the Red Sox and the possibility of a Johan Santana trade. They both agreed that giving up Buchholz and Ellsbury was a little too much. They were fine with giving up Lester though. “He’s just going to be a seven inning, four or five run, five or six walks kind of guy,” Tarit said. “I can see that,” agreed Izak.

“NO,” I said. Lester was only one season removed from CANCER, I explained to them. In the three starts before his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma started affecting his game, Lester had thrown a one-run game, a shutout, then a one-hit shutout, respectively. He had the potential to raise the velocity of his fastball to the upper nineties. He had just won the clinching game of the World Series. And he was only 24.“No way he’ll ever be more than a 12 win guy,” Tarit concluded. Izak nodded in agreement.

After not being traded in the off-season, Lester began the season as one of the Sox’s best pitchers. Izak, not nearly as stubborn as Tarit, admitted to me that he had done the unthinkable. He had underestimated cancer. He didn’t believe that the disease actually had affected Lester that much. He just thought Lester didn’t have the ability.

Tonight, Jon Lester threw a no-hitter.

More than anything in the world, Tarit hates being wrong. Instead of acceding a point, he’ll pretend he doesn’t hear what you’re saying. He has been known to change the subject when the tide of the argument is turning against him. In school debates, he’ll simply raise his voice if the opposing party is making more logical arguments. But tonight he called me. A defeated voice sighed across the line, “Okay, I was wrong about Lester.”

Tarit was quick to point out that a no-hitter does not necessarily mean Lester will be good. Clay threw one last year and he is still far from consistent. Hideo Nomo and Derek Lowe each threw a no-no for the Sox and neither was ever the staff ace. I understand these points. But Lester is my guy. He and Clay both threw their no-hitters at much younger ages than either Lowe or Nomo.

The true moral of the story is to never underestimate cancer. Izak, with his eccentric and backwards logic, has started to overestimate it, if that’s possible. He now says that he expects any player that comes back from cancer to be unreal. Be that as it may, the Jon Lester story is one of the best in professional sports. The Jon Lester career may be even better.

For the first eleven years of my life, the Celtics were a joke. A perennial loser, the franchise was still crushed from the Len Bias and Reggie Lewis tragedies–two events that I was too young to remember. Cheapskate Owner Paul Gaston ignored the fans, Coach Rick Pitino ran the team into the ground, and promising young forward Antoine Walker cared more about wiggling than winning. The proudest franchise in the NBA was being destroyed.

Then Paul Pierce changed everything. In the 2001-’02 season, Pierce became one of the League’s brightest stars and most clutch performers. He transformed the Celtics into a scrappy team with a penchant for big comebacks. In the fourth quarter in a game against the Pacers, he and Antoine began holding up the Pacers’ lead on their fingers, counting it down with every bucket until they were ahead. The Celtics were the ultimate never-say-die team led by the ultimate never-say-die player. You see, I was fated to be a Celtics fan from birth. The night before she went into labor with me, my mother stayed up all night making a 2.5′ by 6′ collage of Celtics greats from the 1980s. Newspaper clippings, photos, magazine pictures, even caricatures of the players are literally piled on top of each other to fill the entire area. Considering that the Internet did not yet exist and there was no other convenient or accessible database for all these photos, my mom must have spent months collecting the materials for this project. Still, though, I couldn’t comprehend what being a Celtics fan meant or recognize what a Celtics great was until the 2002 playoffs.

The Celtics sent the Sixers and Pistons packing in the first two rounds, facing the New Jersey Nets in the Eastern Conference Finals. The conference’s worst team the year before, the Nets traded Stephon Marbury for Jason Kidd and did a worst-to-first turnaround. The Celtics managed to steal one of the first two games in New Jersey and came back to Boston with the series tied up. But they got run off the floor in the first three quarters of Game 3. They were losing by as much as 26 points and entered the final period trailing by 21 points, a fourth-quarter deficit no team had ever overcome in NBA history. Paul Pierce was settling for outside shots and the offense was stagnant. Between the third and fourth, Antoine Walker lit into the team, directing most of his fury at Paul Pierce. Pierce silently sat on the bench, and no one knew if he was listening or tuning his captain out. I thought the team was imploding, that the gregarious personality of Walker was finally psyching out Pierce, that the responsibility was too much for such a young player.

How wrong I was.

In a comeback that cannot be captured in words (which is why the Youtube clip starts off this article), Pierce took his game to another level. He attacked the basket like a man possessed. The Celtics scored 41 points in the quarter. I finally understood what being a Celtics fan meant. I finally understood what a Celtics great was. Paul Pierce took everyone watching that day to a different level. As Bill Simmons said in his recent podcast with Jemele Hill, everyone thought Pierce had made “the leap.”

The next game, though, as Bill Simmons also pointed out, everything Pierce had accomplished was for naught. Pierce missed the first of two free throws with seconds left in Game 4 and the Celtics down by 2. Pierce was no longer the king of crunchtime, and the Nets didn’t lose another game in the series.
As Simmon said, Pierce never really recovered from that free throw. The Celtics lost to the Nets again the next year. They lost to Indiana the next two years. The first Indiana series was a clean sweep and in the next one the Celtics got embarrassed in a home Game 7 blowout. In one of the games against Indiana, Pierce got ejected, took off his shirt, and did his post-game press conferences with his jaw wrapped in gauze. With Walker gone, Pierce struggled as the team’s leader. He always seemed to implode rather than explode when the game counted. As recently as this year’s Atlanta series his immaturity showed through, picking up a technical foul in the final minutes.

In yesterday afternoon’s pre-game show, the camera panned over the Celtics’ retired numbers hanging from the rafters. My friend Izak, also a die-hard Celts fan, was over and we talked about which players on the current team would get their numbers retired. Pierce was the most obvious, and he will definitely have his number retired. But it hurt us to put 34 on the same list as 33 and 6.

Jake: Pierce will be up there.
Izak: I guess.
Jake: He’s one of the greatest Celtics ever, statistically at least.
Izak: I guess statistically. But you can’t win a championship with him as your best player.

Forty-eight minutes of basketball later Pierce proved us wrong. Kendrick Perkins described the greatest Game 7 I’ve ever seen best. “Man, that was unbelievable,” Perkins said. “It was like a video game. You know how Paul and LeBron were going at it, man, that was like NBA 2K8, man. They were hitting some unbelievable shots. I was just happy to be a part of it.”

But the best shot Paul Pierce hit was not one of his dead-eye 15-footers or his spinning pull-ups. It was the free throw to make the game a two-possession game. With the game on the line, Pierce stepped to the line. The missed free throw against New Jersey must have been at the forefront of his mind. It was for me.
Pierce released it. It bounced high in the air, then came down and hit the rim. His shoulders sagged, and something died in his eyes. Then, as Pierce said after the game, the ghost of Red tipped the ball in.

Whatever died in his eyes seconds earlier, whatever died in his mind six years earlier, it was back. As a huge smile crossed his face and as he got dap from his teammates, Pierce transformed back into the precocious star who didn’t fear the clutch but thrived in it.

In the clip above, after his huge comeback, Pierce said, “In the fourth quarter I’m a whole different player, you know. The game’s on the line, and that’s where I think the great players step up.” Welcome to back to greatness, Paul.

Nastiness and killer instinct. Say what you want about coaching, playoff experience, Lebron. The reasons the Celtics are where they are right now, losers of five (going on six) straight road games, all but two of the defeats close, are as simple as nastiness and killer instinct. The Celtics lack both. And there’s only one player in the history of the NBA who could solve both problems. His name is Reggie Miller.

You see, I remember Michael Jordan winning his last championship. I remember him pushing Byron Russell to the floor and rising up. I remember the ball falling through the net. I remember John Stockton missing the three at the other end. I remember Bob Costas saying, “If that’s the last image of Michael Jordan, how magnificent is it?” And I remember thinking, if that’s the last image of Michael Jordan, who was my hero now?

And I remember then thinking about Reggie Miller. I remember that I thought of Game 4 of the Easter Conference Finals. I thought of Reggie pushing off Jordan, catching the inbounds, and spinning to the basket. I thought of the shot slapping the back of the net and Reggie jumping in circles. I practiced that shot for hours on end. Then I realized who my new hero was.

Other than that shot, I didn’t know much about Reggie. He was on the Pacers, and my mom liked the Pacers because Larry Bird was the coach. So when Slam magazine came out with a Miller cover and feature, I tore through the entire magazine. The quote introducing the article was “Reggie Miller can see the ring. It’s there for the taking. And with the championship—and the very future of the League—on the line, there’s no one better to take the shot.” In truth, this line not only initiated me into the Reggie Miller fan club, but also sparked my interest in sports journalism.

I learned that Reggie thrived in the clutch. After MJ, Miller was the best clutch player in the league. He had a cockiness and flair about him that he could never have gotten away with if he wasn’t so damn good. He makes Gilbert Arenas look modest and Deshawn Stephenson, restrained.

What was unique about Reggie’s attitude was that it was never about his team winning. It was about the other team losing. Tom Scharpling, the man who wrote Slam’s feature, captured this side of Reggie in the article. “When Reggie won, it was nightmare time. He broke out the choke sign. He grabbed his crotch like it was the first game he’d ever won, bowed, blew the smoke off his ‘guns’—right out in the middle of the court, home or away, all 6-7, 185 pounds of scrawniness strutting around like a nine-year-old who just whipped your ass at the arcade.”

Reggie once said, “I love being the villain…. I love being booed. It really gets me going. The bad guys are supposed to wear black. That’s okay. I’ll be the bad guy.” He idolized Detroit Piston Bad Boy Bill Laimbeer. Pacers fans booed when the team drafted him, and he always was out to prove them wrong. And if proving them wrong meant showing them up, he could live with that.

Most people don’t remember it now, but before this Celtics season, Danny Ainge tried to give Reggie one more shot at that elusive ring. Envisioning him as a sixth or seventh man, he wouldn’t have been counted on for more than ten to fifteen minutes a game. People sometimes mention how his outside shooting would’ve helped the team, how he could’ve been a go-to guy in the clutch.

But those aren’t the reasons the Celtics need him. The team needs him not for his three-point aptitude, but for his attitude. The team needs someone to tell Kevin Garnett that silencing the away crowd is as exciting as pumping up the home crowd. The team needs someone to show Ray Allen there is life for shooting guards after 32. The team needs someone to tell Paul Pierce that throwing his headband isn’t nearly as satisfying as putting his team on his back and sticking it everyone who doubted his gonads.

People thought Sam Cassell could bring the team his “I have huge you-know-whats” dance. Instead, he’s just dancing alone. Maybe Reggie would’ve had the same effect. But I don’t think so. And even if he did make this season about his one last hurrah, with one minute left in a close game, I’d take Reggie over Ray Allen every time.

In the end, it all comes down to nastiness and killer instinct. Reggie Miller has both and the Celtics have neither. Some people say that those are two traits you cannot teach. I say Reggie could have.

Muhammad Ali once said, “I’m not the greatest; I’m the double greatest. Not only do I knock ‘em out, I pick the round.” Before his second fight against Sonny Liston, Ali told reporters he had dreamed he would knock Liston out in the first round. He did.

In 1969, Joe Namath’s New York Jets were facing the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. Before the game, the young Namath boldy declared, “We’re gonna win the game. I guarantee it.” They did.

Before Game 7 of the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals, Michael Jordan proclaimed, “I don’t care what happens today, don’t care what happened in the other series…. We will win Game 7.” They did.

On Saturday, Jameer Nelson told the media, “I’m not being arrogant or cocky or anything like that…. We’re going to win this game in Detroit.” Wait–Ali, Namath, Jordan…Nelson? Who is Jameer Nelson to make a guarantee? Who guarantees a win in Game 5?

This generation of athletes, enamored with the confidence of the stars they looked up to feel that they have the authority to make the same prophecies as former greats. In another example of the cockiness and arrogance (sorry Jameer) of these new professionals, guaranteeing victories has become a trend. The media loves nothing more than hearing a dumb, young player put his foot in his mouth and piss off the opposing team and fan base. The players, immersed in their own egos and hungry for the limelight, fall into the media’s trap, knowing it will mean seeing their name in the paper for an entire week, just like Mike! The qualifications an athlete needs to guarantee a victory desperately need to be revisited.

Qualification 1: The player must be the best player on his team
Earlier this year, Steelers backup safety Anthony Smith guaranteed a Week 14 victory against the then 12-0 New England Patriots. His guarantee led to a talk with his head coach and criticism by his teammates. Oh yeah, it also led to a 34-13 Patriots win and two touchdowns right over his head.

To be able to guarantee a game a player has to have control over the game’s outcome. Only the best players on a team have that control and only the very best player has the authority to speak for his whole team. Some people would argue that captains are the only people that can speak for their team. But, in professional sports, captainship is often a figurehead position, awarded based on tenure or size of contract. Who is the Celtics’ leader? Kevin Garnett, Defensive POY and MVP candidate. Who is the Celtics’ captain? Paul Pierce, crunch-time collapser. Case in point.
Qualification 2: The player must be a proven winner
The greatest violation of this rule was not committed by an individual player but by an entire franchise. In 2002, the Atlanta Hawks management guaranteed season-ticket holders that they would make the playoffs. If the team failed to reach the postseason, management promised to refund a portion of the money. Never mind the fact that the team had lost 49, 57, and 54 games in the three previous seasons. Never mind the fact that the team had never won an NBA title. Never mind the fact that the Atlanta Hawks were terrible. I don’t care if the owner was pulling a stunt to sell tickets. Losers can’t make guarantees.
Qualification 3: The game must be the final game in a championship series.
In 2003, the Kansas City Chiefs were 9-0 heading into a matchup with the NFL’s perennial losers: the Cincinnati Bengals. There was already undefeated season hype building for the Chiefs and the Bengals were supposed to be one of the gimmes left on the schedule. Then a young, brash, relatively unknown Cincinnati receiver named Chad Johnson guaranteed a victory. Then the Bengals shocked the world and won the game.
And know what happened then? Nothing. The Chiefs made the playoffs. The Bengals didn’t. The game, in the grand scheme of things, was meaningless. Guarantees shouldn’t be thrown around meaninglessly, and should NEVER be used in the regular season

Qualification 4: My mom has to know who the player is.

My mom loves basketball. She had half-season tickets to the Celtics during the Bird Era. When she moved to California to live with my dad she nearly bought a 12-foot-wide satellite dish because, back then, it was the only way she could watch all the Celtics games. She knows a star when she sees one.

But the thing about my mom is, other than Celtics players, she knows only the stars. And I mean the big stars. Lebron? Yes. Dwight Howard? No. Derek Jeter? Yes. Vladimir Guererro? No. Tom Brady? Yes. Adrian Peterson? No way.
Every sports fan has a relative or friend like my mom. Find yours.
Qualification 5: The player must put his money where his mouth is.
This qualification is my solution to this tiresome trend. From now on, players who guarantee games should have to put their game checks on the line. Because if there’s one thing young athletes care more about than what the front pages of the sports page say, it’s what the dollar amounts on their paychecks say. Players like Jameer will still talk, but, in the end, their money will talk louder.

During the regular season, the Boston Celtics went 31-10 on the road, the best away record in the league.  During the postseason, the Celtics are 0-4 on the road.  Perhaps the losing wasn’t as troubling in the first round, when none of the Celtics’ away games were lost by double digits.  But then the team lost by 24 points to Cleveland in Game 3.  To put that in perspective, the Celtics lost by more than ten points in just two games during the regular season.  Obviously, the Celtics need some mental toughness and they need it fast.

But, wait, this is 2008.  Professional athletes aren’t pushed, they are pampered.  So instead of getting chewed out and shamed, the Celtics are getting comforted.  Dan Shaughnessy wrote in today’s Boston Globe that Celtics management is going to every extreme to make the next away game feel like a home game for the losers of four straight road games.  The link to the article is http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2008/05/12/home_cooking_up/

They can’t really do that, right?  Wrong.  Among the Boston-style amenities the Celtics will be treated to are a duck boat ride to the arena (Quack, Quack!), the permission to wear their whit home uniforms (thanks commish), and a personal national anthem for the team performed by lucky singer Rene Rancourt.  The Celtics dancers and Lucky the Leprechaun will be flown in, just so the team can see them warming up like it’s a home game.  The owners will be courtside as well as some die-hard celebrity fans.  The owners are even going to shoot t-shirts into the crowd during time-outs.  According to Shaugnessy, the Cavs drew the line at Gino, known as the Celtics “human victory cigar.”  See this clip if you don’t understand: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MzP0rNN5w0&feature=related.

Isn’t this cute?  Sure it is, if you’re a Cavs fan.  The story of the Celtics season, up until they lost three away games to the Hawks, was a story of mental toughness, dominance, and shattering expectations.  Analysts thought they were benefiting from an easy conference?  The Celtics went 25-5 against the West.  People thought they couldn’t win when Garnett got hurt?  The Celtics won seven of nine games without him.  They beat every team in the league at least once.  And now the team that won sixty six games in the regular season needs Lucky to warm-up in the hallway to get a win on the road?

So much for veteran leadership.  The Celtics need to grow up.  They have real problems on the road.  They lose defensive intensity; they try to outscore the other team.  Rondo loses confidence and Cassell forgets how to score.  These are professionals, and the ownership and management should start treating them like it.  Duck boats aren’t a solution; they’re a cop-out.

The first argument against boycotting the games is of a political nature: a boycott would be one of the most hypocritical and hollow foreign policy moves in the history of the country.  The last and only Olympics that the United States refused to attend were the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.  Despite the ongoing Cold War, the US and the USSR had competed in every set of games since the World War II.  So what caused President Jimmy Carter to suspend the long run of American participation?  In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, igniting fears across the world of an international, uncontainable encroachment of communism.  However, this invasion and occupation, a drain on the economy, military, and political capital of the USSR, so weakened the country that it was ultimately a defeat for the Soviet Union and communism on the world stage.

Fast-forward to 2008.  Over six years ago, the US invaded Afghanistan.  In 2003, though battle continued in Afghanistan, the United States invaded and then occupied Iraq, igniting fears across the world of an international, uncontainable encroachment of Western ideology.  However, these invasions and occupation, drains on the economy, military, and political capital of the US, so weakened the country that they were, in many ways, a defeat for the United States and democracy on the world stage.  Sound familiar?

This year, the games are once again held in a country that has encroached on the sovereignty of another nation, committed severe human rights violations, and funded a war.  No, I’m talking about China now.  But the fact that Red, White, and Blue is still considering skipping the Games’ opening ceremonies, with many of its citizens calling for an all-out Olympic boycott, is the height of hypocrisy.  Before the United States and its citizens don their capes, they might want to check the label on the costume box.  The capes might be Made in China^TM.

However, to cite hypocrisy as the reason the American celebrities, politicians, and ordinary citizens should drop their protest is to sell short the spirit of the games.  The object of sport is to bring together different sides to compete within stated rules and parameters.  Sport is not merely a popular form of entertainment for both competitors and spectators.  Sport is a social means of achieving unity, acceptance, and a higher understanding of what it means to be human.

Think I’m overstating the sociological significance of athletics?  Examine the effect Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad Ali had on breaking down racial stereotypes in America.  Consider that Taiwanese pitcher Chien-Ming Wang’s performance non-coincidentally correlates with “fluctuations of the Taiwan Stock Exchange,” according to a recent Sports Illustrated article.  Look at your city or town and recognize the sense of identity that comes from the local high school, collegiate, or professional sports teams.

The Olympic Games themselves have a long history of social achievement.  In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, African-American Sprinter Jesse Owens won four medals in Nazi Germany.  He became a hero in Germany; there is a street leading to the Olympic stadium named after him today.  In 1968, Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists on the medal podium, poignantly protesting American racial inequality.  Every American born before 1975 knows where they were for USA 4, USSR 3 in 1980.  Those are the lasting images of the Olympic Games for the United States. 

The Olympic Games bring the world community to a higher place.  In a time where the word “international” is almost always followed by “conflict,” finding a place where all countries can agree to play by the same rules isn’t just rare, it’s unique.  By boycotting the Olympics, the United States would not be virtuously leading the international community—the US would be ignorantly abandoning it.

– Melvin Ely is one of the most valuable players in the NBA right now. He has career averages of 5.8 points per game and 3.8 rebounds per game. This season he averaged 3.9 points and 2.8 rebounds. Last season, Ely played in only six games for his new team after a mid-season trade. So why is he one of the keys to the Hornets advancing? Because last season he spent half a season on, and those six games playing for, the San Antonio Spurs.
Color commentator Reggie Miller made a salient point in Game 1 of this series when he said that Byron Scott and other Hornets should take cues from Ely on how to guard Tim Duncan and deal with the defending champs. Ely spent a half a season going up against Tim Duncan in practice and listening to Popovich in games. He knows the trainers, coaches, and players of the Spurs as only a teammate can. He knows what the team likes to do in certain situations. So the success he’s had guarding and helping out with Tim Duncan as the Hornets’ first big off the bench in the playoffs should not come as a shock.
Taking players from other rival teams is one of the most underappreciated advantages in the NBA. Oftentimes the fifteenth player on a contending team is more valuable than the seventh or eighth player on a losing team, simply because other contenders can use his insight as well as his basketball skills.
So when you see Derek Fisher somehow matching up with Deron Williams and Kurt Thomas killing the Suns, don’t be surprised. Fisher’s bringing more to the table than shooting and Kurt Thomas is bringing more than toughness and flopping. They’re bringing their memories.

–Chris Paul has stolen the “best runner in the lane” and “best floater in the lane” titles from Tony Parker. It’s funny to see people comparing Paul’s ability to score in the lane to Parker’s because while that skill is such a small facet of Paul’s game, it is the most valuable asset of Parker’s. Still, though, Parker still has the titles that matter: 3 NBA Championships, 1 NBA Finals MVP, and best-looking wife.

–One of these days I’m not going to be able to contain my anger towards these Spurs any longer and I’ll write a blistering 2,000 word article on why I hate their flopping, complaining, and general annoyingness. I don’t understand how Bill Simmons recently called them a hard-to-hate team. They’re the most infuriating team in the playoffs. I swear, if Duncan and his incredulous, “who me?” looks at the refs advance to the next round, my head might explode.

–Julian Wright could develop into a 15 and 8 guy very soon. Like next season soon. Once he makes his game more fluid, which he has been doing very effectively in the playoffs, he gives the Hornets outstanding athleticism at the Small Forward position. He’s going to get minutes next year for his defense alone. Not many 6’8″ players can keep up with Tony Parker.

–You know how David West was antagonizing Oberto after a call the other night? You know how Tim Duncan came over and nearly broke David West? You know that toughness he showed? That was like the exact opposite of what Dirk Nowitzki did to David West in Round 1. And people really think Dirk will win a title?

–I understand that Chris Paul makes people want to say “WOO!” But is it really necessary to say it after every CP3 point and assist? Now that he’s scoring 30 points and dishing out 15 dimes a night, I think the line has been crossed. “WOO” is becoming the DE-TROIT BAS-KET-BALL of the Western Conference. New Orleans, stop while you still can.

–How many games have the Pistons won in the last five years with clutch free throws? They’re one of the only teams that, when they have a two possession lead with anywhere under two minutes, make you feel like changing the channel because the game’s over. Look at the free throw scoring and free throw shooting of Billups and Hamilton in 82games.com’s “clutch” statistics from this season. These are measured when in the fourth quarter or overtime with less than five minutes less and neither team is ahead by more than 5 points.

Billups
By FG FGA FG% FTM Pts
48 Minutes 9.1 19.9 0.457 18.2 38.5

FTM FTA FT% FTA48 PTS48

42 46 91.3 19.9 18.2

Hamilton
By FG FGA FG% FTM Pts.
48 Minutes 9.6 18.8 0.512 10.1 31.6

FTM FTA FT% FTA48 PTS48
22 24 91.7 11 10.1

The number of points they get off of free throws is just silly. For Billups, free throws make up almost half his scoring average in these situations. Hamilton’s free throws are a shade under a third of his points. Also consider that Billups, being a point guard, handles the ball the most in these situations and that Hamilton is the best in the league at getting open off screens whenever he wants to. This tandem is the Jonathan Papelbon of the NBA. The fact that Detroit loses any games with a two-possession lead going into the final two minutes astounds me.

–In my article about finding reasons to dislike another team I didn’t write about the despicability of the opposing team’s home PA announcer or its fans. Detroit is tops in the league for both. The whole DEEE-TROOOIT BAASSS-KET-BALLLL chant should’ve ended after they upset the Lakers and not a second later. It was the “Cowboy Up” of the PA system. As for their fans, a picture should suffice.

–Seeing if Orlando gets any lift from their home crowd will be interesting. For every Orlando home game I watched this season, I remember being really disappointed by the noise level and atmosphere. Maybe they’ll come out of the woodwork for the playoffs. It happened in Atlanta.

–Prediction: Detroit in 6

Orlando takes Game 3 at home then Detroit wins a close Game 4. The series goes back to Detroit and they have one of their patented “intensity is overrated” games. They lose, get angry, end the series in Game 6 in Orlando.

When a fan’s team is in the playoffs, he or she builds a list of reasons for hating the other team.  It’s an organic catalog that starts with stereotypes about the other team’s city (ex: Detroit‘s a run-down city) and ends with the annoying and meaningless physical features of the opposing players (ex: Rasheed Wallace’s freaking bald spot).  Boston fans, groomed in the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, are naturals at assembling ordered and ranked excuses to hate the other team. 

But for the first round of the playoffs this year, I didn’t put much time into a hate hierarchy.  Not a single analyst I heard predicted the Hawks hanging with the Celtics for more than five games.  I thought it would be a clean sweep.  Why waste energy hating Atlanta when the Celtics are facing so much more compelling teams in later rounds?

Then the Hawks won two games and I suddenly needed a list.  Easy, right?  Wrong.

For the first time in recent memory, I could not make myself hate the opponent.  In truth, I fell for the Hawks.

This is not to say my love of the Celtics is in jeopardy.  To put my feelings in context, it’s as if someone is married to his wife (the Celtics) and loves her very much, but still finds a young, hot actress (the Hawks) attractive.  After Game 4, the Hawks were my metaphorical Jessica Alba.

I tried to dislike the Hawks, I really did.  Usually recording of hate-able traits of the opposition takes no more than three easy steps.

Step One:  Turn to the city.

Atlanta.  Atlanta….  Uhh….  All I know about Atlanta is that the Braves, Falcons, and, um, Hawks play there.  I could just trust what Ludcris said about the city in “Welcome to Atlanta.”  Or not.

Step Two:  Turn to the organization.

Well, Billy Knight is inept, but not in a malicious way.  This is the organization that gave us one half of Bird-Wilkens.  They had three of the more exciting Slam Dunk Champions: ‘Nique, Spud Webb, and Josh Smith.  Most importantly, they’ve never been a competitive team for as long as I’ve followed basketball.  As a Celtics fan, I’ve enjoyed that.

Step Three:  Turn to the players.

This one should’ve been easy.  They’re mostly young players taken in the lottery.  In the NBA, teams built that way are usually mistake-prone, on and off the court.  Chances are one player has a bad attitude, maybe even a rap sheet.  Teams like this play me-first basketball, complain to the refs, ignore their coaches, don’t play defense, and generally give off a negative vibe.  I hold these truths to be self-evident—I’m a survivor of the 2006-2007 Celtics season.

Well, guess what?  The closest thing to a villain the Hawks have is Mike Bibby, who played so poorly the first two games that his comments about Boston fans became a joke.  What the Hawks have are bona fide warriors.

Al Horford:  The Leader

Anyone who watched the series understands his case for Rookie of the Year.  He sets the tone for that entire team.  Instead of being intimidated by the playoff atmosphere, the physicality of the series, and KG (who my Mom thinks needs to be institutionalized), Horford thrived under the greater pressure.  While it was a surprise for most, including myself, to see a rookie emerge as the gritty leader of a playoff team, people probably shouldn’t have been so shocked.  At Florida he won two national championships.  In the 2007 title game he had 18 points and 12 rebounds.  He knows how to win against good teams, and having someone with that knowledge, more than his rebounds or putbacks or toughness, was what allowed the Hawks to extend this series.

The defining moment of the series for the Hawks was when Horford hit the jumper to ice Game 3, then backpedaled up the court staring Pierce down and trashtalking him.  Pierce had to be restrained, and, instead of the Celtics go-to crunchtime scorer, he looked like the rookie whose couldn’t control his emotions.  While everyone in Boston thought that incident would make Pierce dominate Game 4, everyone on the Hawks roster saw it as proof that their win wasn’t a fluke.

Josh Smith:  The Wing-Man

I’ve never seen a power forward run the break like Josh Smith.  Chris Webber might have, but I was too young to remember it happening.  As Gerald Green is out of the league and Fred Jones and Nate Robinson, even worse, play on the Knicks, Josh Smith and Dwight Howard are learning to harness the athletic gifts they showed in winning the dunk contest into legitimate basketball skills.  Here are Smith’s stat lines for the first two Atlanta home games:

   Points         Rebounds    Assists     Steals         Blocks

G3:   27                   9                    6                 2                       1

G4:   28                   6                    2                 2                       7

He was simply dominant.  Whenever he was on a fast break Celtics fans did what girls do at horror movies—we covered our eyes with our hands, utterly afraid, and peeked in between the cracks, entirely excited.  And really, the games in Atlanta were horror movies, with Josh Smith starring as the seemingly complacent guy who no one expected to go on a killing rampage.  His home/road splits didn’t suggest any huge outburst on the horizon.  Neither did his numbers against Boston.  But KG simply could not contend with Josh Smith’s ridiculously athletic game in Atlanta, especially in crunch time.

A side note: Before Josh Smith turns into a real star, he needs a nickname.  Someone get SLAM on this.

Joe Johnson:  The Star.

I didn’t think he could be the best team on a contender before this series.  Frankly, I hadn’t paid that much attention to him.  Now I feel like an idiot.  He’s 6’7,” 235 pounds, can shoot coming off screens or off the dribble, can back smaller defenders down, and can absolutely take over a game in the clutch.  He shoots almost 40% from 3-point range.  According to 82games.com, Johnson’s tied for 8^th in fourth quarter scoring average in the NBA.  And he’s only 26.  I wish the Celtics could get guys like that.

An interesting aside: the parallels between Johnson and another member of the Celtics are ridiculous.  The Celtics drafted Johnson out of Arkansas with the 10^th pick in the 2001 draft.  Know who they drafted with the tenth pick three years earlier?  A 6-6, 230 forward whose college that also had the letters “kansas” in it: Paul Pierce.  Right down to their style of play, they’re remarkably similar, only if Johnson looked like he didn’t work out and lost his temper during key moments in big playoff games.

Zaza Pachulia:  The BRAIN!

Not only does he have one of the best names in the NBA, he also has one of the largest craniums.  Just ask Kevin Garnett.

After watching the Hawks dismantle the Celtics in the first two games in Atlanta, I became a believer.  When they run the break and feed off the crowd, they’re one of the most exciting teams the league has to offer.  With one more shooter (Salim Stoudamire?) and an even better point guard (Acie Law?), and a few more years, they’ll contend.

      But maybe my falling for the Hawks is just a microcosm of what has happened to the league in general.  The whole NBA is experiencing a youth movement.  The 2007-2008 season featured more than a few young teams showing that they didn’t need veteran leadership to grow up.  Portland, the NBAs youngest team, shocked the West before the All-Star break.  Philadelphia, the NBAs seventh youngest team, shocked the East after the All-Star break.  Utah was the fifth youngest team in the NBA at the beginning of the season and now they’re a legitimate title contender.  (Stats from http://www.rpiratings.com/NBA.html)

And now that the first round of the playoffs is over for my Celtics and the season for the Hawks, I can admit it.  I like the Hawks.  This fact made the last week and a half extremely difficult for me.  I’m sorry to my everyone I watched the game with, pretending to hate Al Horford’s retainer just as much as they did.  I’m sorry for pretending to really be pissed off by Zaza’s huge dome (I actually found it comical).  I’m sorry for pretending to care what Mike Bibby thought of Boston fans.  I’m sorry for living a first-round lie.

But I’m not sorry about being excited for the 2008-2009 Atlanta Hawks.