t a l l a p e

11:46 – They pre-filmed a “please don’t riot” commercial! And, we have our first sighting of Brian Scalabrine on the bench…now we just need Scot Pollard to show up to make the experience complete.

11:44 – Oh, one more thing. Bill Simmons, I hope your dad doesn’t actually have that heart attack you’ve been predicting for years.

11:41 – 3:10 left, 34 point lead, I’m officially going to stop writing now. It’s time to watch.

11:33 – Slaughter rule.

No, seriously, someone break out the slaughter rule.

There are deficits that can be made up, and there are deficits that cannot.

36 points, 5:07, is a “cannot”.

Something that’s exciting to me: the Celtics actually matter again! I was 6 the last time the Celtics won a world championship, and for almost the entire interim they’ve been terrible. Awful. I played basketball as a kid, but I never got into watching pro basketball at all, because it just wasn’t fun to cheer for a team that was bad year after year after year.

But this…this is fun. This is a whole city that’s psyched, absolutely pumped up, because of this team, and that’s fabulous. And they’re fun to watch!

Note to the rest of the world: yes, we’re spoiled. Over the last couple of years. But in my lifetime, these past few years are pretty unique.

11:29 – Note to the Lakers: DO NOT LEAVE RAY ALLEN STANDING BEHIND THE THREE POINT LINE ALL BY HIMSELF. It will not work.

36 point lead.

11:28 – RONDO! 21 points. Damn, yo. Maybe he can stay, huh?

The commercial for “Hancock” has been updated with shots from this game. Slick.

11:23 – Kobe isn’t on the court? What the hell? Did he get 5 more fouls when I wasn’t looking?

I believe the technical term for this is “giving up”.

(Mind you, Kobe was playing like crap. He forgot how to pass. Every possession was either the other 4 guys passing and trying to get 3′s, or Kobe dribbling around for a while until he drove to the basket or took a ridiculous falling jumper with hands in his face.)

Ray Allen hits two open three point shots, and the Celtics lead is 31. With 9:07 left, Boston has hit three digits.

11:20 – Bad pass by Vujacec, followed by a huge outlet from Brown. Someone needs to teach Farmar to grab the guy instead of pushing him in the back. Or, now that I think about it, actually, maybe not…it’s somehow fitting for this series.

11:19 – 30 points, 11:11 left in the 4th. Rondo is being very aggressive.

11:11 – If you were wondering, John Havlicek is the definition of regal. Thank you, Mark Jackson.

11:08 – Rondo with his 6th steal. The announcers said earlier that the NBA record for steals in a playoff game was 7. Woah. He’s certainly stepping it up tonight. (But he still can’t shoot.)

And Kobe comes back with the best possible example of a “I will not pass to you fools” drive.

11:05 – A few times over the past few years, I’ve been watching Pats-Colts games, usually towards the end of the 3rd quarter or the beginning of the 4th, when the Patriots have tended to look a little slow. I’ve taken to yelling at the TV at times, specifically yelling “KILL MANNING! KILL MANNING!” when the Patriots are on D.

It’s not that I actually want them to kill Peyton Manning. He’s a bit silly, but generally inoffensive. It’s more that I’m attempting from afar to convey that point that it’s time to GO. Time to play hard. Time to step it up a notch, do everything right, etc.

Right now, I want to yell some equivalent of KILL MANNING at the Celtics. They’re still up big (30 points at the timeout), but they’re not playing as hard as they were, and they’re not making choices that are as good as they were earlier.

10:56 – Garnett is stronger than Gasol, if you were wondering. That held ball was huge, if only for his confidence. Next time down the floor he goes hard to the basket.

Rondo has more offensive rebounds than the Lakers (!!!!!!!!!!)

Let me add another exclamation point to that.

!

Dude’s, like, 5’10″. He went OVER GARNETT to tip in Garnett’s miss on the last possession.

10:56 – I’m having a good time right now imagining the guys that I grew up with down in Neponset (or, more to the point, the guys that I played little league with back in Cedar Grove).

31 point game, 5:56 to go in the third quarter.

Bryant forces up a fall-away jumper from 18 feet. Poor choice.

10:48 – RONDO! I like the up-tempo game that the Celtics are playing. They’re not trying to milk the clock, they’re playing hard on both ends and trying to extend the lead instead of just sitting back and trying to play keep away.

Rondo with his fifth steal, it’s a 29-point game.

10:45 – Am I the only one who is more scared of Fisher than Kobe right now?

10:43 – Pierce starts the second half with a scoop shot. Like I said about cute.

Next time down the floor, though, good movement gets Ray Allen a totally open 3-point look.

10:36 – Stuart Scott brings back the Red Auerbach story line.

And I think that Dwayne Wade is wearing the same suit on the halftime show that he’s wearing in the T-Mobile press conference commercial. Awwwwkward.

SECOND QUARTER – Okay, here’s what I was trying to say before the end of the second quarter got ridiculous (and my heart rate is way, way up right now. Seriously. Out of control.). The Celtics look dominant at the moment. They’re running harder, they’ve gotten fantastic play from their bench (Big Baby with some good D down low, Posey being Posey). But, towards the end of the second quarter, they got a little cute. They started making one more pass than was needed. For better or worse (better now, worse later?) they got away with it. But that’s the kind of thing that worked against them — in spades — back in game 2. And that game ended up being far more exciting than it should have been when it got to the end.

The crowd has been ridiculous. The noise is crazy. I wish the announcers would let themselves be a little more into it: Gus Johnson would have had an aneurysm at the end of the second quarter, when Garnett put that floater down over Odom for the plus-one.

10:18 – Here’s what I was saying a second ago, before Kevin Garnett…never mind…Perkins with the block, down to the other end, work some time off the clock, and PERKINS TO FINISH!

10:17 – Another turnover for Kobe! And Garnett finishes huge! Holy crap!

10:16 – The Celtics are getting really, really cute.

10:13 – Right now the Lakers have 9 turnovers, with 16 Celtics points off of them. The Celts have 3 turnovers, with 4 Lakers points off of them. Along with the offensive rebounds, that’s the story right now.

And RONDO!!!!! With his 4th steal of the game…make that 10 turnovers for the Lakers…but the Celtics give it right back after a posession that featured 42 stupid passes, the first 41 of them somehow successful.

10:08 – At one point, the Celtics had 11 personal fouls, the Lakers 4. That disparity is coming together, at least.

Rondo can’t shoot. At all. I shoot better than he does. And I’m not a good shooter. But, at least they’re having to guard Rondo, and can’t just leave him to go run around like a 9 year old girl playing with a high school basketball team while his man double teams people…

10:06 – Garnett almost comes away with the steal in the backcourt. He’s tearing it up right now.

A buddy of mine from college just called. I haven’t talked to him in, oh, 2 years. I asked if I could call him back tomorrow, and then he basically hung up on me because I was way too distracted to actually have a conversation.

10:04 – It’s a 14 point game, Celts on an 11-0 run, Jackson takes another timeout. Kobe has just gone from “I’m going to win this game” mode to “I’m going to win this game all by myself or make people worship me while I go down in flames because I try to do everything all by myself” mode.

10:01 – Fisher picks up his third foul. That hurts for the Lakers. You know what hurts for the NBA? Every time they show the play where Allen took a hand to the eye, opening a cut over his nose, and no foul was called.

9:59 – Posey is a stud. Allen is still in the locker room, getting his eye looked at, though he’s apparently still alive if Michelle Tafoya’s shout is any indication. Celts fans screaming and yelling, going nuts when they see Allen coming out.

9:55 – The offensive rebound disparity is ridiculous at this point. Energy. It’s all energy. James Posey is not a big guy, but he just grabbed one in traffic. Big Baby got one immediately prior in the middle of three Lakers. Run harder than the other guys, good things happen.

9:53 – Garnett’s back; can he keep it going?

9:48 – Gorgeous fast-break basket by Leon Powe, after a terrible outlet pass. Celts are running like crazy, the Lakers are trying to make it easy, it seems. They’re getting a lot of calls, but they’re going to have to get a lot more than this if it’s going to work.

9:44 – Kobe Bryant almost comes up with a steal, I’ll give him this, he’s going to try to win this on his own if he has to.

Doc gets called for a Tech, a typical Joey Crawford call, and then Pierce drops a three. The Celtics are shooting badly, but they’re playing with a lot more energy than the Lakers (except Bryant).

9:41 – Big Baby is in the game, interesting choice considering that he hasn’t played at all in the finals. But Eddie House has things going, it seems, and if he gets his toes in the right place he could be big again.

FIRST QUARTER: things of note: Garnett is tearing it up inside; there will be no game 5. If he can keep this going for a whole game, there is no question how this one is going to end.

Bryant has gotten off to a strong start, but I’m not sure that he can keep counting on 25-foot three pointers.

Pierce has had a tough start shooting, but he’s taking it inside without fear, and the Lakers are collapsing onto him which is giving other people open looks. Though it would help if more of those people were not Rajon Rondo.

9:34 – Pierce on the board, Mark Jackson is talking shit about the crowd in LA.

9:32 – Simmons, if you ever read this, your live-blog of Game 4 was not up to snuff. This isn’t either, but really, you couldn’t do better than this?

9:31 – PJ Brown alley-oop to Garnett, and the announcers have to yell to be heard over the crowd.

9:30 – Eat more PB&J, kids. Then you’ll be as hyperactive as Kevin Garnett, as dead-eye as Ray Allen, and as hard-core as Pierce.

9:25 – Doc Rivers deep in conversation with one of the refs. Perhaps about the fact that his guys are getting drilled every time down the floor, and getting called for terrible fouls on the defensive end. Hmm.

I’m not totally credulous of the idea that the NBA fixes games. In fact, I don’t think they do. But really? This is a fairly called game? So far, I don’t think so.

But, Boston up two.

The Red Bull ad that was just on had the tagline “Red Bull gives you wiings”. I’m not sure the misspelling was intentional.

9:18 – RONDO!

9:16 – Rondo has 3 steals in 5 minutes of game time.

9:15 – “How do you break a window on a plane?” I’m glad that the commentators are on their game tonight.

9:14 – Rondo is a monster on the offensive boards. What?

9:12 – One of those kinds of games, I guess. Three phantom fouls on the Celtics early, Pierce called for a blocking foul when it should have been a charge, Garnett called for a foul when Fisher dribbles into his chest. Ridiculous. I guess maybe Simmons was right about the refs.