1) i am not losing faith in my team. but i need them to come back with the explosive intensity and aggressiveness that got us through 66 regular season wins. i want to feel comfortable going out of the confines of my home to see an away game, to not walk away muttering "what happened" and "where did my team go?" we all have such tremendous faith in them. we all have such high hopes for them. i can't sit there and watch them falter on the road. their frustration is frustrating me. the fact that they forgot to pack their defense is frustrating me even more. thankfully ups does early monday deliveries. let's hope that works.

2) my favorite 'there can only be one' commercial (and i LOVE them. seriously) "in the playoffs, everything changes, sure the regular season got you here, but it's over. only thing that matters now, is what you do next. this is when one team can become part of history. this is when one team has the chance to be remembered."

3) i am starting to hate just how much BS acting is going into foul calls. i'm starting to feel like the only grounds to call a flagrant should be when a) blood is drawn or b) the player can't play immediately afterward. none of this leaning into arm feigning you got strangled and then hopping up to play like normal crap. the major floppers are going into my book of fainting goats. manu ginobili is on the cover, but if lebron keeps it up, i'll make sure he at least gets an inset picture. garbage. you are a 6'9" 200 something odd pound man. act like it.

4) the irony of the "dude's fakin" vitamin water commercial post floppy foul never ceases to amuse me.

5) i am honestly debating writing sambot's guide to not being a douche at sporting events.

6) i'm leaving the country in 2 weeks for 2 weeks. can you imagine the insanity i will have from not being able to check espn? perhaps i'll be good for me. who knows.

really, if you're the evil tarheels' shining star, you would probably think twice about leaping off a building.

that hansbrough, not so bright.

check the link.

1) today i got offered two awesome celtics tickets and cannot make the game due to prior commitments. i hope the ticket karma i get out of that carries me through to later games. seriously, floor for 100? at a playoff? yar. it's all good, i'll be watching the game regardless.

2) the other night i pulled the rockstar move and made my way to td banknorth as soon as i hopped off a sharply delayed flight. lucked out on a balcony seat, at first, with two seats to the right of me. the game was pretty painful to watch, but nothing can compare to the pain of a 2 seat wide man squeezing into the seat beside you. so, i'd paid for 25% of my seat, because i was crushed up attempting to avoid his body heat, belly roll, and giant thigh. i felt kind of bad for the guy until i realized that it was him who reeked. smelled like he hadn't bathed for 2 days. nearly vomited. add a beer spilled on my back from the drunk chick 2 seats up and i was in a FANTASTIC mood.

then lebron flopped on the foul and cassell got called for a flagrant which was quite possibly the biggest BS i'd seen that night. then i REALLY wanted to hurl. ugh.

3) i'm really proud that the celtics defended lebron as well as they did. i'm glad he was having an off night. hey, i hope he has a series worth of "off nights." i need ray allen and paul pierce to have awesome offensive nights though - defense wins games, but offense is pretty integral to the mix.

i worry about going to cleveland though. earlier in the season there was a game that was an offense lover's dream, but a NIGHTMARE on defense. i hope that doesn't happen again.

4) eddie house, where are you? sam cassell is great and all, but everyone knows you're a shooting guard in a PG's body.

5) who would have thought that ilgauskas would be the man of game 1 for cleveland?

6) kg and rondo carried that game. although, i wish i'd seen more from rondo in the second half. it was cassell time, i suppose. i loved the collective held breath in the garden right after he released a long 2 pointer in the 4th quarter. also - when posey was about to make his 2 foul shots, the garden got as quiet as i'd ever heard it. people were actually shushing drunken massholes, and they were listening!

7) speaking of drunken massholes, i think i've about had my fill of them. 2 seats down from stinky cheese man sat a younger guy screaming slurs and ...erm... rude names at celtics for not getting the shots when he wanted them. who are these people? what is their problem? you stand by your team. if you are down by 1 point, you don't say, "eff you you suck." there's bibby's bandwagoner right there. ugh.

go c's! more soon, yard.

i need the following to happen tonight:

1) i need houston to beat utah. why? because utah downright scares me. they're all business, all the time. i can't afford to have them with the momentum of going to another round.

2) i need washington to push it to a game 7 situation with cleveland. i need cleveland to win the series, but i need washington to win it tonight and get beaten by cleveland in game 7. why? because i need cleveland to be less rested going into round 2.

3) i need the celtics to win tonight. obviously, but i also need a recording of all the folks jumping off the hawks bandwagon if they lose tonight. they're a young energized team, and the celtics need to not let them into their heads.

i'm going to the red sox game tonight. so excited!

the celtics weren't playing good basketball. period. i've never seen them fall apart like that. makes me worry about the actual challenging teams in the playoffs. atlanta was playing decent ball, but joe johnson was playing explosive ball. seriously, 35 points? out of control.

my question was - where was tony allen? could he have stood a chance as the johnson defender?

odenized posted the video below - and i must say, the soft spot from 2 posts ago for little shimmy horford is gone. where is the class?

game 5. i am so ready to be there.

today's lesson:

leon powe is the man. good things happen - the more you powe.

(check the image after the jump.)

i used to have respect for mike bibby, despite him being on a few teams i didn't particularly like, and being a royal pain in the ncaa (for my teams, at least). i don't think he was successful in his efforts to "take heat" off his younger players. for what it's worth, the globe gave him some pretty positive press until he insulted the fans. bandwagon or not (and even i can admit that i see a ton of new fans now. what a change from the emptiness of the last few years.) they love the team. and insulting the fans is equivalent to spitting on someone's doorstep before you walk into their house. just plain rude.

mike bibby made himself look like a chump, even with his post game commentary! calling everyone who booed you a bandwagon fan? more like painting yourself to be even more of a jerk. and people here liked him before - as was evident from the game at the beginning of march, if for no other reason than having eddie house as a brother in law. i respected him for being a bibby! he mentored rondo! and he calls it a strategic move so he can alleviate the pressure on his teammates?

it's only strategy if it's worth something in the end. if you're looking rattled in the fourth, after 48 solid minutes of booing you've brought upon yourself, your strategy backfired. if your star player fouls out and isn't on his a-game, and you can't produce a good scenario for your teammates, your strategy backfired. consider me a jumper onto the bibby sucks bandwagon.

it's exciting to live in a town that FINALLY cares about basketball again. i like football, i like baseball, but i'm one of those people who's legitimately upset when march madness is over, who finally re-embraced the nba a few years ago after losing the love thanks to george shinn in charlotte (and MAN i loved the hornets when i was a kid).i love basketball. i love this team. i love this roster, especially. i don't appreciate bibby's commentary, and i definitely don't appreciate his comments about perk.

perk is a beast.

it must be tough to be in atlanta, one of the most fickle towns for sports ever. but i have to say - you have to have fans in the first place to have fairweather fans. it takes the celtics going down there to pack that place. oh wait.

TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE FOR GAME THREE!

last night, in the garden, you couldn't hear the announcers over the bibby jeers. it's unlike anything i've experienced in the games this year. so loud, almost electric. i love the energy i get from it, i love how everyone around me is totally into it. the playoffs are amazing. and three cheers to kg for his defensive POY award - and bringing the team over to accept it with him..

i will admit the following:

1) i have a soft spot for al horford. why? the shimmy. 110% the shimmy in the final game of the ncaa tournament. hawks fans are missing out on massive merchandising possibilities. just imagine: the al horford jack in the box, you turn the crank, and mini horford pops out and shimmies. i should work for the nba. hook a lady up.

2) holy crap, acie law iv. i want you on my team in two years, provided that you're not injury riddled. acie stepped up his game majorly yesterday. i think out of the group i went with, i was the only one as impressed as i was. i think he's been overshadowed with horford on his team (and horford's pretty damn good for a rookie), but law's got a lot of potential.

3) rondo's better.

4) kg couldn't get that fadeaway jumper for the life of him last night. he finally got into the groove, but a little bit late.

5) i'm concerned about the lakers.

6) the dancers with the gino shirts are unnecessary. gino's getting played out. if we win a trophy, i hope gino gets retired, instead of beaten to death.

cheers everyone!

sam

congrats to the celtics on their first playoff win! this video was highlighted in the game tonight - check out the 1986 dancing doc rivers from this hawks video. epic.

the knicks fans got their wish - isiah is fired.

such a shame, really. his reputation is so tarnished, i wonder if it can be recovered in any way.

i have a good time mocking the microkorg vocode stylings of t-pain and akon. thankfully - the folks at olde english took my favorite vocoded subjects and made the best animation possible out of it.

i've been laughing at this all day. totally not sports related, but worth a laugh.

wow. you folks are awesome. and yes, i think it may just be a celtics hater - who knows! thanks for all the awesome commentary.

however, i'm taking this post suns victory moment to bring you a little newspaper humor. (and, man, i got really worried when nash got angry about the technical. that is one dude that you don't want on a fired up scoring rampage)

i have a habit of always checking boston.com after i get home from a game. it's just a little something i like to do - read up on the game, see if i missed anything epic. you know the drill.

tonight was no exception, and i took a peek at boston.com's celtics section and found this little gem.

seriously now, globe. i will edit your sports stuff. i will edit the hell out of any sports stuff. but jesus, GET THE TRUTH'S NAME RIGHT.

someone on yardbarker just doesn't like me at all.

and i'm beyond amused at it - someone's actually going to all the trouble to find my stuff and rate it poorly, etc etc.

i'm waiting for the poorly written message that isn't from a nigerian payment scam, and then the whole lineup is complete.

good old internet. always great for a laugh.

last night i found myself wondering what would have happened if the stars at kentucky would have stayed. could you imagine? the dominance would be overwhelming.

now, please, don't get me wrong, i love having rondo as a celtic, and i'm bummed that morris isn't getting any playing time in ny. rondo's well on his way to a long and amazing nba career. he's on track to become one of the best point guards in the league. and he's 22! so much promise so young, it's amazing, and kind of weird to think that a lot of uk fans have been watching him for years now.

but as a wildcats fan, think of it this way. if rondo and morris had stayed at least 3 years, they would have been legends at uk. they would have been in a great spot to win the big dance. they would have become a squad like the one florida had (horford, noah, green and brewer) with rondo, bradley, morris and crawford (ha, yeah right, i mean patterson, obviously. crawford "lets the ball die in his hands." thanks, cbs).

but how would that have affected the UK landscape. would tubby still be there, now? would his recruiting situation be better if he'd had a jaw dropping team in his pocket, at least in the eye of the uk basketball masses? there's no denying that the guys who went to the nba had a massive amount of talent, but instead of being remembered fondly when they return to their alma mater as they are now, they would have been legends, if they'd kept performing. there are a ton of factors that go into this, obviously, and i'm thinking idealistically, but what's the worst that would happen? how could college talent derail an nba career? it could potentially shorten it, but it could also add to their value.

the younger guys have the argument that it extends their nba careers, and it possibly was the best decision for them at the time, i don't rule that out, but think about it - you only have 4 years to become a college legend. you have the rest of your career to become an nba one. if you think about it, how many stand out nba players can you think about who went through all 4 years of college and were included in the last few drafts? is the nba skewing to 19 years old? somewhere, dikembe mutumbo is shaking his finger.

i'm still proud of what the cats did this year after being so shaken up with changes. they clawed (pardon the wordplay) their way back into contention after some painful losses. but i find myself missing the feeling that i get when i have the championship on my bracket, with uk's name on it.

i've got to hand it to cbs. the online live feeds are excellent. EXCELLENT. i'm waiting impatiently for the kentucky marquette game.

however, the audio is buggy as hell. is it just me? hm.

march madness is my favorite time of year. ranking high above my birthday, christmas, etc etc. basketball=best