I know the Celtics are going to lose in Round 1
On Tuesday, I thought Dwyane Wade could beat by himself what I described in a recent e-mail as a "decrepit, non-rebounding, poorly coached, dispirited, excuse-making, washed-up sham of a contender" (admittedly, I was a little angry)
and that was before the Celtics tanked Game 82 on Fan Appreciation Night in a pathetic attempt to land Milwaukee in Round 1. Nope. They got Wade and Miami. The karma gods hate that crap. And that's what this season was: crap. The Celtics have been a .500 team for nearly four months. Everyone has a glazed, "As soon as we get eliminated, we get to start summer vacation, right?" look on their face, and if you could describe Garnett's bizarre clinging-to-the-past-and-not-getting-the-hint-that-he's-done-as-an-impact-player season with a movie character, it would absolutely be O'Bannion from "Dazed and Confused."
All this shocked the die-hards who loved the 2008 and 2009 teams and never thought they'd become, for lack of a better word, weak. Yes, we won two years ago. Putting us well within my self-proclaimed five-year grace period -- see rule No. 12: "No fan can complain about a team that just won a title for five years" -- and making me a hypocrite for everything you read in the previous paragraph. Of anything I ever wrote, I regret the five-year grace period most. I created it three weeks after the Patriots won Super Bowl XXXVI, my first Boston title in 16 years. It had been so long since one of my teams won anything that I had forgotten what it felt like. So really, my creating rules for fans of championship teams was like Kate Moss releasing a manifesto for eating fatty foods. How the hell would I know?
Here's what I learned from 2002-10 (six Boston titles in all): You can't stop being a sports fan just because your team won a title. Sports are all about the highs and lows. If you don't get swept up in them, you become detached, and eventually you won't care as much. Just because the Celtics won two years ago doesn't give them the right to embrace "Don't worry, we might not care now but we're gonna try in the playoffs" as their team mantra two years later, just like I shouldn't be obligated to accept their recent foibles out of some twisted sense of gratitude.
I thought the Celtics played their fans this season. Don't rope us in with "ubuntu" for two years then turn your back on it like it was a kabbalah fad or something. Don't tell us to embrace "The New Big Three," then shop Ray Allen for eight months like he was a used car. Don't tell us our best forward's knee is fine when we see him limping. Don't blame the effort of your players after a loss when you played all 12 of them like they were Little Leaguers, or when you keep playing the one guy who exhibits no effort whatsoever without calling him out once. Don't sign a second center for big bucks, then act surprised when the incumbent center bristles about his playing time. So on and so on. It was an empty season filled with excuses, half-truths and false promises. Just because they won two years ago doesn't mean fans had to blindly condone it.
I once wrote that Miami's 2006 title run was like a group of guys in Vegas spending crazy money at dinner, having a great time, ordering dozens of dishes and drinks and never once worrying about the check
and the 2007 Miami season was like the 10 sobering minutes when the check arrives and nobody can believe the bill. The check just gets passed around so everyone can stare it in horror, then the one dude with an MBA grabs it and figures out what everyone owes, and you limp out of the restaurant saying, "I can't believe we just spent $250 apiece on dinner, I gotta hit an ATM," but it takes an extra 10 minutes to leave because somebody has to take a dump and somebody else thinks they have a chance with the waitress, so the rest of the guys are just clustered in the lobby, totally full, a little bit drunk, a little bit tired, trying to rally for a big gambling night but knowing they're about to get their asses kicked because you can never win in Vegas when you're drunk, full and tired.
Welcome to your 2009-10 Celtics postseason. The check has arrived. I hope I'm wrong
They are a great team though and a late-season slump really doesn't matter after looking at their history.
