Celtic Pride: Or, The Wearing of the Grin

I have been remarkably silent about the Celtics over the last few weeks.

Don't mistake this for anything other than what it is: I'm superstitious as all hell.

Curses are dumb. They are not real. But I'll be damned if I am going to be the one who messes with fate.

And so for two months I've been wearing the same C's hat. I've been drinking the same Sam Adams beer during games. And given how the Patriots performed in the Super Bowl I've been uncharacteristically humble about the guys in green. Given that I'm a Red Sox fan who well remembers life before October 2004, I've been fatalistic. Given that it has been more than half of my life since the C's were the most dominant team in the history of American professional sports, I've been intolerably uptight. In sum, I've been miserable (albeit with good beer and a comfortable hat at my disposal). If I have learned anything, I have learned that there is no commutative property of sports. That the Red Sox and Patriots have been successful has had almost no bearing on my emotional reaction to the Celtics of late.

Odds are that if you are reading now, you know exactly what happened in the game last night. The Celtics crushed the Lakers. Humiliated them. The C's suffocated the Lakers when the visitors were on offense (enough of the Kobe as Jordan comparisons, eh?) and buried them when the C's were on O. The Big Three proved to be stars, the supporting cast overwhelmed, and the bench made all the difference, outplaying the much more heralded Lakers Bench Mob for the entire series. It was quite clear from early on that the better team came to play, and while the team from Hollywood had come in hopes of something magic (or Magic) happening, instead Red reached on down and ... .

If you are a Celtics fan a breathless recap will be thrilling to you. But there are better places to get that. (See Bob Ryan's article here, Dan Shaughnessy's here, Sportsguy's here and if you are into schadenfreude -- and you know you are -- I'd strongly recommend the columns by the LA Times' Bill Plaschke, TJ Simers, and Mark Heisler.) And if you are not a Celtics fan this is just annoying -- more Boston sports crap in an era where Boston sports crap seems to be ubiquitous. (Nota bene: Don't blame us. Root for better teams.)

I am happy as a lifelong Celtics fan. I am happy as a longtime Paul Pierce booster.

I am happy as a guy who was lucky enough to be born into a legacy that included Bill Russell and Red and Cousy and Havlicek and Tommy and Jo Jo and the Jones boys and Luscy and Cowens. I am happy as a guy who grew up with Larry and the Chief and McHale, but also DJ and Cornbread and Henderson and Walton. I am happy as a guy who lived through the deaths of Len Bias and Reggie Lewis. I am happy as a guy who saw a generation of basketball fans grow up worshipping Jordan and anointing Kobe because they did not know what came before them. I am happy as a fan. Title number 17, against the Lakers, at the New Garden, with my favorite Celtic in a generation leading the way. It does not get much better than this.

[All photos from The Boston Globe/Getty Images.]

The NBA Race for MVP

Over at The Boston Globe the always-reliable and often-great Peter May makes the case for why Kevin Garnett ought to be the NBA MVP. A sample:

If you want to give the MVP to the guy with the best numbers on a pretty good team, then Garnett is not your guy. If you want to give it to the best player on the best team, to an individual who has transformed a franchise and brought the word "defense" into the daily discourse without the need for a laugh track, then he still has to warrant serious consideration.

MVP debates in most sports often come down to the same definitional dilemma: What do we mean by "Most Valuable." Some people simply argue that the MVP ought to go to the best player. Others try to parse what "valuable" means, especially in terms of a guy's value to his team. I have always believed that it would be appropriate to have an MVP and a Player of the Year award, even if in many years the award might well go to the same guy.

As for this year's debate, there is no doubting that LeBron is a singular talent. And Kobe is having another year of gaudy numbers on a very good team in the tougher conference. But it seems to me that Kevin Garnett has been the difference-maker in taking the Celtics from the dregs of the East to the best record in the NBA, and he has made the Celtics a great defensive team while still racking up offensive numbers. I'd rather have the C's win and other people take home the individual hardware. Nonetheless, I'd give LeBron Player of the year if such an award existed. But Garnett gets my vote for MVP.