Showing posts with label Iman Shumpert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iman Shumpert. Show all posts

Thursday, May 2, 2013

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.
 
 
 
THE BUZZ:
 
NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs --
Round 1, Game 6:
Celtics vs. Knicks
Friday, May 3rd, 2013
@ The Boston Garden
Boston, MA
 

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Boston Loses In New York Minute: Celtics Continue Skid Against Knicks -- 86-89


On the bright side, Paul Pierce's case of the fumbly-mumblies won't be following him to Houston for All-Star Weekend. At least not on the court, anyway.

On a night in which he learned that he would not make the All-Star Game for the first time in five consecutive years and only the second time in the past twelve, Paul Pierce started the game with that familiar chunk of rock on his shoulder, carrying the Celtics against the Knicks with 19 first quarter points. Unfortunately, he would only score three more points, ending the game with 22 and two critical kick-aways in the final minutes during which the Celtics were desperately trying to score a basket to tie what had once been a 10-point Knick lead.

Of course, it's a team game and Pierce -- who almost ALWAYS shows up large for anything related to the Knicks -- did more help than harm for his band-members but it just wasn't enough against a controversy-free Carmelo Anthony, who scored 28 points on 11-28 shooting to go along with 9 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals. Even another triple-double (his 4th of the season) from a never-say-die Rajon Rondo (23 points on 10-19 shooting, 11 assists, 10 boards and 3 steals) couldn't seal the deal in a nail-biter, mainly because no other Celtic could crack double figures. Kevin Garnett, struggled on offense with only 8 points but managed to pull down a gritty 12 rebounds with 2 assists, 2 blocks and a steal. Other than that? Get the team a Waaaah!-mbulance (thanks Modern Family!).

Amar'e Stoudemire (who missed the Cheerio-Mysterio game) dropped 15 easy points along with 9 boards and 2 blocks on the Celtics, and teammates Jason (Ben Gay, son?) Kidd scored 12 and the fresh-from-his-knee-surgery-debut Iman Shumpert gave the Knicks 10 to end any Green hopes of a second straight win over NYC and first win in four games.

The C's now slump to the end of January toting a 6-6 record for the month with Atlanta, Miami and Sacramento on the horizon to either throw us over the edge, or signal another resurgence.

Am I counting the Celtics out? Hardly. The effort they gave tonight was hampered primarily by their inability to find any open banks willing to let the Celtics use their credit to purchase even a small handful of baskets (though they shot better than the Knicks for the whole of the game, finishing at 40.8% to New York's 38.6%).

If the Celtics continue to fight and play just a little bit more team-oriented basketball (some of the best sequences for the Celtics came with the hard swing of the ball from corner-to-corner), the shots should start dropping and Geno will come off of life-support and find himself dancing at the Garden once again.

It's coming, C's fans. As Boston's own Mark Wahlberg once told us as he lounged with his own team, The Funky Bunch -- back before he was an A-List HollyCeleb -- and rocked the moniker "Marky-Mark"...

 
Though I have NO idea why a kid from Boston's sporting a Spurs jersey.

Still...

Tale Of The Tape

Box Score