Late To Their Own Funeral: Celtics Never Say Die Attitude Kills Knicks

 

Attention K-Mart shoppers...we are all out of funeral black clothing. Shoppers are advised to put on their regular clothes, shut the f**k up and play ball.

 

Holy Apples!!! I can't even put into words how fantasmic this win by the Green was.

From Kenyon Martin and Co. wearing black to what turned out to be their own funeral; to J.R. (no-shot's-too-far) Smith talking his way into an excremental shooting night to the doomsday pundits all having to give respect to the never-say-die Celtics after doing everything in their journalistic (I say this tongue-in-cheek) powers to help shovel the dirt on Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and the C's WAY prematurely. And even with all of THAT, the Knicks had the nerve to try and smacktalk the C's at the end of the game after getting served by them and thus providing their opponents with even more fuel to want to serve them even harder back in Boston (yeah, I know they say Jordan Crawford started it, but I watched the tape)! As the dearly departed 2-Pacalyptic one would say (even though he was born in the NYC) "Throw up the middle finger."

From Smith's punk-@$$ elbow to Jason Terry's face to his subsequent bullsh*t "I don't even know who I elbowed," to his laughably idiotic "If I played it would have been over" lead-in to a 3 for 14 crapfest of a game and then Martin's chalkboard choke telling his boys to "dress for a funeral" before not only eating his words and his feet, but eating his teammates as well who all followed dimwittedly along and dressed in black.

And...while I'm not buying the idea that's floating around out there that the Knicks "funeral" blunder was a calculated attempt to disrespect the City of Boston and its recent tragedies, I think the Knicks (K-Mart in particular) are a bunch of typically egotistical, self-centered and spoiled athletes who don't think past the tip of their own noses when they say anything not filtered by a publicist. They may not be malicious, but they sure are DUMB. It's almost as if they wanted the Celtics to come out with fire in their eyes. Well, mission accomplished.

The Snickerbockers unintended self-immolation may have been just what the Celtics needed to push them over the edge to play together against a common enemy, but it also speaks to a larger problem for New York moving forward, both in this series and later, if they escape the wrath of the C's.

It is exactly this kind of empty "Big City" hubris that reveals just how not-ready-for-primetime this squad is. I'm not saying that they're going to fold up and hide faster than a New York street vendor during a cop convention and lose to our beloved Celtics (which they very well might, though he odds are with them...for now), but it's clear that all of this self-distraction proves that they've got some serious growing up to do and, under the John Starks stark and unforgiving spotlight of the Playoffs, that learning curve can be VERY steep. Just ask LeBron and his Heat.

I'm sure I don't even have to mention the pyrotechnics and confetti and the "not one championship, not two, not three..." embarrassment that preceded the first season of LeBrash and Friends and we all know how that season ended up. This year? They came into the Playoffs and quickly, quietly and efficiently finished off the Milwaukee Bucks. You have heard nothing from them as they wait for the winner of the Chicago Bulls/Brooklyn Nets series. Not a peep. That's called maturity, something that these Knicks are still searching for. Hopefully they'll have plenty of time to search for it after Sunday.

As for the Celtics? Well...I think I'll just say it in pictures...

Brandon Bass has been a force on both the offensive end...

 

...and the defensive end guarding Carmelo.

 

Kevin Garnett has been nothing short of a revelation,

posting 4 consecutive double-doubles.

Captain Paul Pierce had started this series slowly, but he has come on of late to lead the team as the "point forward" filling in for the injured Rajon Rondo and still providing ample points (and just about everything else).

He does, however, have to begin respecting

the defense of Houseparty 2 Iman Shumpert.

 

Jeff Green has begun to fulfill some of the promise he came to Boston with in the Kendrick Perkins trade with OKC. His heart and recent aggression have been key to the C's attack.

 

 

Bench players like Terrence Williams have proven to

be valuable playoff assets, both on offense...

 

 

...and defense.

 

And there are a whooooole lot of other factors contributing to this team's resurgence, but with any luck...we'll get to those.

 

Box Score

 

Tale Of The Tape

 

THE BUZZ:

 

NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs --

Round 1, Game 6:

Celtics vs. Knicks

Friday, May 3rd, 2013

@ The Boston Garden

Boston, MA