ESPN Mag delivers all-Boston issue

Posted by Chad Finn, Globe Staff
http://www.boston.com/

Sweet rings, sweet cover about Boston's winnahs, and sweet distraction from the submerging Red Sox. Or as Kevin Garnett put it in a classic commercial for ESPN Mag back in the day before he was part of the Boston sports scene, it's tastefully done.

While the suspicion here is that this week's all-Boston issue will include more references to "Beantown'' than most true Bostonians would ever actually say -- that would be one or greater -- a glimpse at the table of contents suggests it should be appealing overall even to the most parochial Boston fan.

Hey, anything with an article about Boston sports titled "Decade of Dominance" is off to a good start as far as I'm concerned. Also, Bill Simmons -- Grantland Sports Guy these days -- returns to the magazine to write a back-page piece on why the issue was a bad idea.

I know there's a punch line there, but I'm not finding it. So let's consider five other articles included in the issue, in order of appeal:

The Front Office Diaries -- A look inside the thinking of the Red Sox farm system featuring the scouting reports on some of the team’s best homegrown players, such as Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Clay Buchholz, and Jonathan Papelbon. Sounds like required reading for those howling without context or a clue that Theo Epstein should be fired.

How to Rob Fenway Park -- Chuck Hogan’s novel “Prince of Thieves” was turned into “The Town,” a well-reviewed and wholly Boston movie directed by and starring Ben Affleck. (Jeremy Renner, a Modesto, California native, had the most accurate Boston accent in the movie, however.) Following the movie’s release, there was a string of copycat bank and armed car robberies utilizing techniques seen in the movie. But no one has tried to copy the film’s heist of Fenway Park -- yet. Other than perhaps John Lackey every fifth day.

Bruins in the Bean -- This photo essay will show why the Stanley Cup champion Bruins are the most Bostonian of all the pro athletes in the Hub, with vignettes of their daily lives and what they love about Boston. No wisecrack here. Could not agree more with the premise.

Debating Boston -- Artie Lange (a Yankees fan) and Denis Leary face off to argue that Boston’s sports teams are awful and amazing, respectively. Then they rip apart the other’s view. Kudos to ESPN for going with two legitimately funny personalities to rep the two fan bases rather than, say, Billy Crystal and Lenny Clarke.

Who Does Tom Brady Think He Is? -- An examination of why Tom Brady is hard to relate to and "insufferable." Presumably co-bylined by Terrell Suggs and Bridget Moynahan.

Regarding that last article, I'm going to do what Brady does so well: pass. But I am looking forward to checking the issue out. It should arrive in subscribers' mail boxes today or tomorrow and is available on the newsstand Friday.

Mount Champions

From: http://www.weei.com/

Is Pierce the NBA’s Most Complete Player?

By:  Allen Moll
From: http://thehoopdoctors.com/

When all is said and done and Boston Celtics great Paul Pierce finally does hang it up sometime in the future, there’s no doubting that his #34 jersey will join the many other Celtic greats like Bill Russell, John Havlicek, and Larry Bird up in the rafters at TD Garden. But as this truly all time great of the game has been overshadowed throughout his career by other high profile superstars during his tenure like Kobe Bryant and Lebron James, many NBA players when asked who the hardest player to guard is, the answer more times than not is that of “The Truth.”

If you think about it, sure Lebron James is much more physical, Kevin Durant is a better shooter, Tracy McGrady was a more prolific scorer, and Kobe is well, a Top 10 scorer in NBA history. But one could argue that Pierce is the perfect combination of all 4 players as he possesses great handles, plays excellent defense, shoots daggers from behind the arc, has an excellent midrange game, and can dominate a game with the best of them.

While he is no longer a spring chicken at the tender age of 33, Paul still shows flashes of what has made him an 8 time All Star, 4 time All NBA selection, an NBA Finals MVP, and a 20,000 point scorer. Many fans don’t realize just how diverse a skill set Pierce has, all in a 6’8 and 235 lb frame. He towers over and overpowers most shooting guards yet possesses enough quickness, ball-handling, and maple moxey to get off his own shot against bigger front-court players.

Most deadly has been his almost patented spin move and step-back jumper which to this day still gets the best of and even infuriates even the league’s best defenders attempting to guard the future Hall of Famer. “The Truth” now plays more of a facilitator type role on the Celtics, averaging 18.3 ppg and providing whatever is needed alongside his star-studded cast including Rajon Rondo, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Shaquille O’Neal.

Apparently the now older Pierce’s game is still in full effect as his Celtics are once again the current #1 seed in the Eastern Conference with a gaudy 34-10 record, including a nearly unblemished 22-3 home mark. Surely the aging and prolific supporting cast have their eyes set on making their 3rd NBA Finals appearance in the past 4 years now that their mainstay in the middle Kendrick Perkins is back in the fold.
Check out this interesting video where current NBA players claim that Paul Pierce has the full “bag of tricks” and is nearly impossible to guard:


Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania.  Allen also provides content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.

Shaq Visits Bar from “Cheers” and Sings

By: Dr. J-Water
From: http://thehoopdoctors.com/

We’ve got to give a big shout out to Jimmy Traina at Sports Ilustrated’s Extra Mustard Hot Clicks for posting this great video of the Big Diesel making a visit to the “Cheers” bar in Boston. Shaq even made a point of attempting to sing the theme song to the TV Show ‘Cheers’, although it seems he didn’t know the lyrics as well as he thought he did…

Shaq has been making all sorts of hilarious appearances lately at the sights in Boston. First it was crashing a wedding at the Four Seasons, then it was playing statue at Harvard, then he dressed up with his teammates for Halloween, now Cheers….

Meet The Celtics Dancers

Why won’t you go away? da CELTICS!!

From:

Bam-bam: both Steph and Ray, despite their struggles, had some amo in the 4th.

Have you ever had something that didn’t go away? A rash? A stray cat? An ex-girlfriend/boyfriend? We’ve all had things that we didn’t want around stick around. The Celtics have been turning into the team that is long overdue. That won’t die. Everyone wants to know: why won’t you die? Why won’t you go away?

The rest of the post is speaking like a proud parent, so be fair warned…

In this stage of the playoffs, I love the Celtics’ personality– we are the team that won’t die or go away. We keep fighting. And keep fighting. It’s not pretty, but they are winning.

The Celtics have no business being in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. If the Bulls had taken Game 7 in the first round, people in Boston would have been upset, frustrated, and wishing they could play Back to the Future: can we unhurt KG? Heck, can we just unhurt Powe for some additional front-court help and some offensive punch from the bench? But, people would have understood why Chicago beat us: they are younger, more athletic, and much healthier (even though they were down Deng, KG’s shoes are bigger to fill– it’s like saying Deng wears a size 3 and KG wears a size 33). Chicago really should have beat us. All of those OT games, all of those games that were decided by 3 points or less… they could have gone either way.

We have no business winning and no business being where we are: up 3-2 in the Eastern semis. But, we are winning… and winning with the team that we have.

LOOK AT OUR TEAM! With our front-court absolutely decimated, we are counting on Scal and second year Baby to step up and fill the shoes of veteran players. it is an absolute joy to see the Celts steal, literally STEAL, games away from opponents. This is thievery at its best.

Doc is on fire the last 2 games, while Stan van Gundy should be fired.

We are making the best of what we have, and 4 things really stood out last night to make the comeback complete:

• DOC – Doc! He out-coached STANVANGUNDY for the last 2 nights. Steph was inserted at the right time and kept in for the right amount of time. By the time Rondo came back to help the team close out the game, Rondo had the energy to be a lock down defender and see the game to make better decisions. His players didn’t have it for 3.5 quarters, but managed to keep it close enough. Reggie Miller made a great point last night to contrast the coaches: Doc was able to get the ball into the hands of Ray Allen when the foul-fest began, while SVG couldn’t draw up anything effective enough and had to settle with Dwight Howard getting the ball. I’d like to add to this point: Doc prepped his team beforehand in a previous timeout, while SVG had a timeout and still couldn’t make it happen. And SVG ran out of timeouts.
• 

  Steph taking an AND1 on Dwight for an important 3-point play (referencing the fact that Steph helped start the original low cost shoe AND1 in the 90s).

  STEPH – He punched in 12 points in like 7 minutes. For everyone that said Steph would win us a game in the playoffs and stuck by it… Kudos to you. Steph scored when no one else could score and help the Celts trade buckets before our defense could resemble an actual defense.

• BABY – Baby’s growing up. Very quickly. Right before our eyes. 22 points (8-16), 7 rebounds, and stayed out of foul trouble. Oh yeah, he had a +16 +/- rating last night. His defense on Dwight when Perk was out was incredible– finally started playing with his size and it was great to see. Baby baby!
• FREE THROWS – 21-21. 100%. Clutch.

This is a memorable team who has shown that statistics and pundits don’t understand the importance the fight and attitude of a team, especially a championship team. Chicago had more talent than us. Orlando has more talent than us. But we have veteran guys who can play under playoff pressure. They are battle-tested. We have grit, and we have attitude. We have a coach that might not be perfect, but is better than most in the league. Most of all, we have a team. We have a team that plays together and wants to win together. We have a team that just won’t go away.

Too good to pass up this caption: Big Baby emerges (from the womb) to be a critical part of the Celts last 2 wins against ORL. Gross. I know.

Everyone counted us out after Game 1 of the CHI series. Everyone counted us out after Game 3 of the ORL series. Everyone is already counting us out if we make it to the Eastern Conference Finals to see Lebron and his crew. I like being the underdogs. I like when our backs are against the wall.

This is when the ’08-’09 Celts respond.
People can keep telling us that we won’t win, but know that we won’t go away.

Endnote • Dwight has publically denounced the coaching staff- not a good sign. The players are pissed. SVGundy is pissed. Everyone is pissed. But the reality is that they are all to blame. Dwight is over-rated and being shutdown by Perk and Baby. SVGundy only read the Cliff Notes version of “NBA coaching for dummies and fatties.” No one on the Magic can be trusted to take over in the 4th quarter. Look at their last 3 possessions of last night’s game… This team is self-imploding, but I still give them game 6 in Orlando and the Celts come home to finish it off in 7.

Regionals’ Garden bears little resemblance to the C’s home

Derrick Brown passes the ball by Pitt’s Gilbert Brown last night.

Foto: GETTY IMAGES

To put it mildly, collegiate athletics don’t carry the same weight in the city of Boston as professional sports.

So despite the bands, cheerleaders and loyal traveling fans, the buzz Thursday night at TD Banknorth Garden for the NCAA tournament’s East Regional semifinals hardly seemed to live up to the well-earned reputation of “March Madness.”

It didn’t help that the four participating schools — Pittsburgh played Xavier in the opener and Duke danced with Villanova in the nightcap — had few ties to the host city. There were also no Cinderella stories — the top four seeds in the region were there — no overwhelming headliners and few, if any, top-notch NBA prospects.

The crowd filed in during Xavier’s unsuccessful upset try against Pitt in the night’s first game, packing the place by halftime.

The aura of the Celtics’ Garden was largely missing, though. The championship banners and legendary parquet floor were stripped and stashed in some faraway closet.

The floor was pale hardwood with a smattering of logos — NCAA, host Boston College and red, white and blue ribbons — ringed in black. Red Auerbach’s signature was nowhere to be seen.

The rafters, likewise, were empty.

The generic court and constant barrage of NCAA logos made the arena a passable twin for University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., where Thursday night’s West Regional semifinals took on a similar look.

Video: Introducing the Celtics' new dancing phenom

By J.E. Skeets

Shuffle aside, Gino.

Take a seat, (possibly) choreographed Bon Jovi dude.

The Boston Celtics have a new Garden JumboTron legend, and he's only seven-years-old.

Internet, meet dancin' in the aisles superstar Daylon Trotman; Daylon, The Internet.

If that little guy doesn't bring a smile to your face, I am positive you have no soul. Kid's got faster moves than Rajon Rondo!

(Via MyFOX Boston, CelticsBlog.com)