General Admission
Boston means maim, murder & massacre
By Al S. Mendoza
WHO said basketball is just a game?
Quick, scrap that slogan.
By now, Kobe Bryant and his Lakers know that by heart.
The NBA is Iraq, Afghanistan and Kenya. Abu Sayyaf even. In those territories, not just a battle you see. War. Raging war.
Look, Boston mangled Los Angeles for the 2008 NBA crown (4-2) so badly the attendant brutality in it can be compared to a lion mercilessly devouring a helpless deer. You know, that stuff you see on National Geographic, Animal Planet and Discovery.
Get the drift, Pareng Jun, Jess and Gonz?
* * * *
Out there in the NBA, it’s also a jungle. Particularly the Finals.
It’s supposed to be seven entertaining games.
It was terror and horror, lasting only six.
The fourth gave us a glimpse of what bloodshed meant. Down by 24, Boston rallied to win, 97-91.
The sixth dripped with gore and blood you think you’d seen the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki all over again.
* * * *
This season, the NBA harbored a bunch of barbarians disguised as Bostonians. Cannibals even as revealed in their 131-92 dinner of the hapless Lakers in Game 6.
Cannibals what?
Cannibals, as in Celtics, if you want to sanitize their monikers.
What word can best describe this year’s Boston Celtics?
Malevolent? Blood-thirsty vampires? Violent?
All very kind. Mild.
Celtic is a language of Irish, Welsh, Scots Gaelic and Breton origins.
Not anymore.
* * * *
Celtic, as the NBA now wants to tell us, is the language of maim, murder and massacre.
That 39-point winning margin by the Celtics in Game 6 erased their own 33-point, 129-96 winning margin over the Lakers for the 1965 NBA crown.
This was their 11th clash for the NBA crown since 1947, the NBA’sbirth.
Score: 9 for Boston, 2 for Los Angeles.
Yes, I believe, with that 9-2 rout, “How The West Was Won” was truly based on a true story.
To fortify that, the Eastern champion Boston now has a record 17 NBA titles in ending a 22-year title drought.
* * * *
The last one in 1986 was the Big Bird era.
Oh, how the world waxed poetic with a Boston Bird that flew mightily high despite being a non-center.
And there was Kevin McHale to always wing by Bird in case… And Robert “The Chief” Parish to swat away Bird battlers from the pesky Lakers camp.
The trio had been reincarnated this year in Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.
In their thirties or something?
Who cares?
Boston‘s new Big Three played with the youthful idealism of one believingly firmly in Elvis Presley’s “It’s Now or Never” ditty.
* * * *
Pierce is 30, now 10 years with Boston.
Garnett is 32, now 12 years in the NBA.
Allen is 32, now 10 years in the NBA.
Their knees tweak?
Who cares?
Together, they shot 69 points during that murderous Game 6.
Garnett and Allen each fired 26 points, Pierce 17.
Garnett 14 rebounds and Pierce 10 assists.
Allen?
Never alien to any game.
Despite a poked eye early in the game, despite a pair of eyes reddened by tears mourning over his 17-month old son Walker who was diagnosed with diabetes two days before Game 6, Allen banged home 7 three-pointers that tied an NBA Finals record. His 22 triples in six games were a new NBA Finals mark as well.
Together, they won their very first NBA ring.
* * * *
OK, want some more?
Winning just 24 games in 2007 when Garnett and Allen were still in Minnesota and Seattle, respectively, Boston was dead last in 2007. This year, however, the Celtics strung up a season-high 66 wins.
They added 26 more post-season wins en route to wrapping up a crown described by Pierce, the Finals MVP with the moniker “The Truth,” as “so unreal.”
Hello, Paul?
In any war, a victory cemented with tons of cruelty into it, is as real as day replacing night.
By now, Kobe Bryant has come to realize that, too.
(Readers may reach columnist at also147@yahoo.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/general-admission/ For reactions to this column, click “Send MESSAGES, OPINIONS, COMMENTS” on default page.)
Share your Comments or Reactions
Powered by Facebook Comments
