Bill Simmons’ Running Diary of Game Four, And Other NBA Finals’ Thoughts
No quick-hitters, but one quick aside: tonight at the Nokia Theater LA Live, Vin Scully & John Wooden will be on-stage together, and yours truly has tickets to the affair. Two legends of their respective sports—and arguably life itself—and the proceeds go to cancer research? Awesome.
I can’t wait!
- So after having a night to sleep on the disaster that was Game Four, I woke up, dropped by ESPN.com, and happened to notice that Bill Simmons posted a running diary of the game.
(Yeah, it just so happened that he was keeping a running diary of arguably the greatest combination comeback/gag job in NBA Finals history. Uh-huh.)
Let the hysteria/myopia begin:
1) “Special thanks to Gasol for not helping in time — I’m starting to think Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton and two draft picks was a fair trade.” By this logic, the Randy Moss trade was an awful one for the Pats.
Does anyone think the Lakers would be anywhere close to where they are without Gasol? And would be singing a different tune if Bynum were healthy?
2) “Just when I thought this couldn’t get any better, they just cut to a replay of Vujacic punching a chair and fighting back tears on the bench. That wasn’t just the best moment of the Celtics season, I think it was the best moment of my life.” Talk about kicking a guy (and all of Los Angeles, for that matter) while he’s down. Seriously? The best moment of your life?
3) “RAY ALLEN!
RAY ALLEN!
RAY ALLEN!”
As great as Allen has played in this series, the MVP has to go to Pierce (his Game One “theatrics” aside), right? The Celts’ comeback only got rolling when Pierce finally realized that the likes of Vlad, Walton, Ariza, and even Kobe couldn’t guard him. In addition, Pierce had as much to do with Kobe’s lackluster game than Kobe himself.
4) “The Kobe-MJ thing … done. Over. Jordan never would have let that happen in the Finals. Ever. Under any circumstances. Nobody is ever allowed to bring this up again.”
Done and done. Kobe could win the next four rings by himself, and I wouldn’t rank him up there with MJ. Simmons couldn’t be more right on.
5) “For all my bitching about Doc Rivers over the years, I have to hand it to him — he played the right guys at the right time and helped facilitate one of the great moments in Boston Celtics history. The man deserves all the credit in the world. He outcoached the Zen Master. It happened. His focus was on winning, and they won.”
See #4. Rivers could easily have over-coached, but he didn’t. He was as integral to the Celtics’ winning, I’d argue, as the Big Three.
When Simmons was expressing his lust for the Patriots during the last NFL season, his articles were completely unreadable to me. I really couldn’t stand them. For some reason though, his love-fest for both the Red Sox and the Celtics don’t annoy me nearly as much. I guess it might have something to do with my added hatred for Beli-cheat, Brady, et al.
- Some more NBA Finals parting thoughts:
1) Tell me John Hollinger did not just rate Dwyane Wade’s 2006 FT-shooting contest performance as the greatest Finals performance of all time.
(If you want to award Wade an Oscar after the fact for his performance, on the other hand, I’m fine with that.)
Wade’s performance was better than any of MJ’s six Finals’ performances? Really? You can say that with a straight face?
2) Every LA fan has to wonder how much different our interior defense would be with a healthy Bynum out there.
By “different,” of course I mean “better.”
I’ll think about it…for another week or so.
3) Does this game do more to Kobe’s legacy than the three rings he won with Shaq?
I’m inclined to say “absolutely.”
I guess I can now return my Sceptre LCD TV I bought from Costco early last year :P. Do you blame me? I’ve got a summer to look forward to of watching the Dodgers stink (in HD, at least!), Boston Celtics’ championship DVDs (”Witness the greatest comeback in NBA Finals History! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”), and decent summer shows—My Boys, Burn Notice, to name a couple—that aren’t in HD because Time Warner hasn’t yet offered USA in HD yet.
(That was supposed to be a Bostonian “AHHHHHHHHH!” like in Good Will Hunting, and not a scream. I’m terrible at phonetically spelling stuff :P)
Later.