Doc Rivers, I Will Sell You A Clue
It's a commonplace of people reflecting on the nature of territorial sports fandom (i.e., rooting continually for the same team, rather than FreeDarkoesque "liberated fandom") that the pain of losing is greater than the joy of winning. Additionally, the greater the expectations, the harder the comedown; if you never expected to make it to the title game, losing isn't as painful. Surely that's a lesson reinforced for fans of Boston sports in the wake of the Superbowl this year; of course I'm happy the Pats had a great season until their last game, and I wouldn't trade those first 18 games for a middling season of fulfilled but low expectations. But the loss still hurt the more for all the buildup that went into it.
The Celtics' season, though pretty damn impressive, wasn't on the level of the Pats' run at an undefeated year, but those 66 wins look pretty hollow. This has been a weird playoffs anyway, what with the widespread dominance of the home team in any given game, but the Celtics in particular seem so pathetic in their split-personality, winning handily at home and looking like a lottery team on the road. It's bizarre how discombobulated they become outside the Garden, and watching Kevin Garnett fulfill every low expectation I ever had of him as well as watching Pierce retreat into his worst impulses is pretty depressing. And Good Lord is Doc Rivers a bad coach. Really bad. Like, the people who think coaching doesn't really matter in basketball because all you need to do is fire up the players and manage the rotations and call timeouts have to recognize that he's a bad coach because he...can't seem to fire up the players in any effective way, and he can't manage the game and he CANNOT manage his rotation. I'm not watching another Celtics game until/unless they win one on the road; I'm just tired of it right now. I have an intellectual curiosity in the potential Spurs/Lakers matchup, but my basketball malaise has corrupted enthusiasm, and I wouldn't watch it; I would watch Hornets/Lakers, and (Celtics aside) I'd watch either the Hornets or the Lakers take on the Pistons.
Oh, fuck it: I'll watch a Spurs/Detroit finals too, because I'm always up to see Tim Duncan vs. Rasheed Wallace.
The Celtics' season, though pretty damn impressive, wasn't on the level of the Pats' run at an undefeated year, but those 66 wins look pretty hollow. This has been a weird playoffs anyway, what with the widespread dominance of the home team in any given game, but the Celtics in particular seem so pathetic in their split-personality, winning handily at home and looking like a lottery team on the road. It's bizarre how discombobulated they become outside the Garden, and watching Kevin Garnett fulfill every low expectation I ever had of him as well as watching Pierce retreat into his worst impulses is pretty depressing. And Good Lord is Doc Rivers a bad coach. Really bad. Like, the people who think coaching doesn't really matter in basketball because all you need to do is fire up the players and manage the rotations and call timeouts have to recognize that he's a bad coach because he...can't seem to fire up the players in any effective way, and he can't manage the game and he CANNOT manage his rotation. I'm not watching another Celtics game until/unless they win one on the road; I'm just tired of it right now. I have an intellectual curiosity in the potential Spurs/Lakers matchup, but my basketball malaise has corrupted enthusiasm, and I wouldn't watch it; I would watch Hornets/Lakers, and (Celtics aside) I'd watch either the Hornets or the Lakers take on the Pistons.
Oh, fuck it: I'll watch a Spurs/Detroit finals too, because I'm always up to see Tim Duncan vs. Rasheed Wallace.
Labels: Basketball
posted by medrawt at
00:31
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