I'm a life-long (7 decades) Boston/New England sports fan now transplanted six time zones west of the Garden. I don't post much, preferring to follow the observations of the smart people on this site (and there are a lot of them) and compare them to what I see on the screen. This truly embarrassing performance from our beloved and once proud Celtics team prompts me to offer my own comments, similar to many of which are to be found in the preceding pages. I don't see this series coming back to Boston.
This is an enormously talented squad, but one that lacks collective basketball intelligence. They appear incapable of learning from their mistakes. I think they are collectively aware of this fact. This is who they are. Having given away close, winnable games so many times this season, they have gotten that "deer-in-the-headlights" feeling as close games near their end. It's almost as if they know, somehow, that one or more of them is going to make some silly mistake or have some mental lapse that will cost them the game. And it seems to have gotten worse since the playoffs began. They just don't have the mentality of a championship-caliber team.
I don't think we're going to see hard, "send 'em a message" fouls committed deliberately anymore. There will be in-game blowups now and then, that's normal. This is a players' league now. No one wants deliberately to foul a potential future teammate so hard that it might result in a costly injury. And there's a lot of money at stake.
The regular season is too long, and the expansion of the playoffs decreases its importance. Basketball is entertainment, and fans want to be able to watch the players, but the quality of the entertainment suffers as the season drags on.
The players in every professional sport are enormously more talented and more athletic than they were when I was growing up in the '50s. That makes the games awesome. It also makes them awesomely difficult to officiate. Leagues change their rules in an effort to make their games more equitable, and move closer to perfection, but ultimately the officials are human, have human emotions, and make human mistakes.
And now I'm just rambling, sad to see the season end on this note. Banner #18 ain't coming anytime soon; indeed, anytime in the forseeable future.
This is an enormously talented squad, but one that lacks collective basketball intelligence. They appear incapable of learning from their mistakes. I think they are collectively aware of this fact. This is who they are. Having given away close, winnable games so many times this season, they have gotten that "deer-in-the-headlights" feeling as close games near their end. It's almost as if they know, somehow, that one or more of them is going to make some silly mistake or have some mental lapse that will cost them the game. And it seems to have gotten worse since the playoffs began. They just don't have the mentality of a championship-caliber team.
I don't think we're going to see hard, "send 'em a message" fouls committed deliberately anymore. There will be in-game blowups now and then, that's normal. This is a players' league now. No one wants deliberately to foul a potential future teammate so hard that it might result in a costly injury. And there's a lot of money at stake.
The regular season is too long, and the expansion of the playoffs decreases its importance. Basketball is entertainment, and fans want to be able to watch the players, but the quality of the entertainment suffers as the season drags on.
The players in every professional sport are enormously more talented and more athletic than they were when I was growing up in the '50s. That makes the games awesome. It also makes them awesomely difficult to officiate. Leagues change their rules in an effort to make their games more equitable, and move closer to perfection, but ultimately the officials are human, have human emotions, and make human mistakes.
And now I'm just rambling, sad to see the season end on this note. Banner #18 ain't coming anytime soon; indeed, anytime in the forseeable future.
