Boston Celtics will lose TWICE in the next week!

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

You and Sagarin (NOT surprisingly) are out of your minds. The Lakers are only the best team this year because Garnett got hurt.

The Lakers are lucky to squeak by. The celts showed their weaknesses last year, and would have done the same with a healthy Garnett this year.

LoL! Lance-alot, I didn't realize that you were genuinely that naive regarding pro basketball. Please, help refresh my memory:

- Is this the same Garnett-led Celtics that were 0-2 against the Lakers this season?

- Once again, are you referring to the same Garnett-led Celtics that logged a 1-3 record during their Christmas week road trip on the west coast? In stark contrast, the Lakers' east coast road trip finished with a 6-0 record, including defeating the Celtics and Cavs in back-to-back games.

Last but not least, it's a shame that Red Auerbach isn't alive to officially see himself relegated to second-best!

Lamar L.A. wrote:

Last but not least, it's a shame that Red Auerbach isn't alive to officially see himself relegated to second-best!

Even Phil Jackson is smart enough to realize that Red's accomplishments are superior.

Agreeing with Smell the Coffee here . . . I wouldn't go into the Red vs. Phil area and there is a reason Phil doesn't go there either. Red had no assistants, and played the role of coach, GM, traveling secretary, and father to his players all at the same time. His performance as GM (after he retired as a coach) could stand alone by themselves, not to mention the series of color barrier breaking moves all in the racially charged city of Boston.

BillCarr wrote:

Red had no assistants, and played the role of coach, GM, traveling secretary, and father to his players all at the same time.

At the very least, it's debatable. Red also won fewer titles over a longer period of coaching than Phil did, and by the way, the league was less than half the size that it is now, so there was a LOT less competition back then!

Just the facts... wrote:

At the very least, it's debatable. Red also won fewer titles over a longer period of coaching than Phil did, and by the way, the league was less than half the size that it is now, so there was a LOT less competition back then!

Debatable, of course. Fewer titles over a longer period? Red won 9 in 10 years. Phil's are much more spread out. The league was very different then. No free agency certainly. And the smaller pool of players meant the teams were stronger. No weak sisters on the schedule.

A snippet from a article in yesterday's Boston Globe:

With all due respect to Jackson, Randy Auerbach said she and her sister, Nancy, do not believe it's fair to compare her father's legacy with Jackson's. And Jackson agrees.

"Not to take away from Phil, but it's a different record," said Randy Auerbach, who lives in Los Angeles. "You're talking about a record with one team in which he won the first one and then won in eight consecutive years. Phil did it with two different teams and it wasn't consistently. It's about quantity. If that's his case, good for him.

"But it has to be broken down. It's a different record. How do you compare eight in a row, nine in 10 years?"

Auerbach won his first title with the Celtics in 1957, didn't win the next year, then won eight straight through the 1965-66 season. He then passed the coaching torch to Bill Russell, who won titles two of the next three seasons as a player-coach.

"Red probably could have won two or three more championships," said Jackson.

Oh no you didnt wrote:

Fewer titles over a longer period? Red won 9 in 10 years.

Yes, that's true. But he also won 9 in 20 years, as opposed to Phil winning 10 in 18 years. Of course, I'm sure that it's merely a coincidence that you omitted those little facts!

Oh no you didnt wrote:

A snippet from a article in yesterday's Boston Globe:

With all due respect to Jackson, Randy Auerbach said she and her sister, Nancy, do not believe...

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Red's own children aren't exactly the most objective source. On the other hand, here's an article froma an unbias source at ESPN that you might enjoy:

X marks the spot of greatest NBA coach

Good morning, Celtics fans (although I sincerely doubt that YOU will think so)!

One more interesting article to brighten up your day. The ESPN staff authored an objective ranking system to rate every NBA franchise, and it's very interesting to see who sits in the top spot:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2009/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=FranchiseRankings-Intro

Lamar L.A. wrote:

Good morning, Celtics fans (although I sincerely doubt that YOU will think so)!

One more interesting article to brighten up your day. The ESPN staff authored an objective ranking system to rate every NBA franchise, and it's very interesting to see who sits in the top spot:

First, it was not "the ESPN staff." It was John Hollinger. Why not link us to what Bill Simmons has to say?

And you've got to love these tidbits:

"Relocation is a 100-point penalty. Changing cities is the ultimate failure for a sports franchise"

The ultimate failure. That's your Lakers, my friend.

And how about this:

:Intangibles: +150. Endless stream of superstars -- on the court and in the seats."

Why not just come out and admit that the fix is in on this thing? 150 points because Jack Nicholson is there?! Ha, ha!

This is hilarious! Thanks for the laughs.

Read before write wrote:

This is hilarious! Thanks for the laughs.

As long as we are dishing out compliments for high-quality comedy, it's tough to compete with Sir Lance-alot and his blind loyalty to the Celtics! I really hope that he was intentionally being a troll, because if he honestly believes that the Celtics could have defeated the Lakers this season, he is delusional (to put it politely).

Read before write wrote:

Why not just come out and admit that the fix is in on this thing? 150 points because Jack Nicholson is there?! Ha, ha!

You're obviously just another tunnel-vision idiot from New England. The Lakers also had more all-time wins, more playoff wins (by a 30% margin), and more playoff series wins. But please, don't let annoying little concepts like "logic" and "facts" get in your way!

Added perspective wrote:

You're obviously just another tunnel-vision idiot from New England. The Lakers also had more all-time wins, more playoff wins (by a 30% margin), and more playoff series wins. But please, don't let annoying little concepts like "logic" and "facts" get in your way!

I notice you did not mention the "fact" that the Celtics have won more championships. Tunnel vision?

Didn't Jackson win 6 in 8 years with the Bulls? If Jordan didn't "go on a hiatus" they'd have won 8 straight. I agree with the poster who said lack of free-agency allowed the Celts to stay great for so long. If you have the best team in the league and for the most part team rosters stay status quo every year, it makes sense that you'd stay dominant for many years to come.

u forgot something wrote:

I notice you did not mention the "fact" that the Celtics have won more championships. Tunnel vision?

Not at all. The Celtics deserve a great deal of credit for winning 17 titles! However, ignorant trolls like Read before write were so desperate to find something to use against the Lakers, he forgot to perform basic math: even if you subtract the factors that he is b!tching about, the Lakers have such a large lead on the Celtics in the other objective categories (playoff victories & series victories) that the subjective points are inconsequential.

Added perspective wrote:

...even if you subtract the factors that he is b!tching about, the Lakers have such a large lead on the Celtics in the other objective categories (playoff victories & series victories) that the subjective points are inconsequential.

The categories are objective. The scoring rubric is subjective. There is room for doubt.

Stat Mann wrote:

The categories are objective. The scoring rubric is subjective. There is room for doubt.

Not much.

Eliminate all of Hollinger's subjective prose and take another look at the five statistically objective scoring categories. The Lakers and Celtics are almost dead-even in three of them: overall wins, titles, and all-stars. The tangible difference is derived from the other two: playoff wins and playoff series wins. If you assign any significant value to those factors, the Lakers clearly come out ahead.

It isn't really rocket science, but I'm sure that some of the more stubborn Boston fans believe that it is!

Can't believe this thread is still front-page material. Despite what happened last year, the Lakers were heads and shoulders above the Eastern Conference this year, and their convincing CLOSE-OUT wins on the road in both the Denver and Orlando series revealed their greatness. Orlando ended up being their easiest series, Cleveland was a virtual no show with no depth, and the Celtics would've lost in five or six to the Magic but for a couple of VERY fortuitous shots, some rookie mistakes by Orlando, and Van Gundy's "protect the win" defense. Garnett would have made the Celtics more competitive, no doubt, but I'm not certain they would've made the finals. It's a moot point now.

Oh, and, Shaq wasn't able to win without a Kobe or Wade, and Kobe wasn't able to win without a Shaq or Gasol. If Denver gets a Gasol, there's your championship.

Sagarin wrote:

Can't believe this thread is still front-page material.

Blame Lamar for that. He just can't give it up.

I think we can agree that the Lakers were the best team this season, just as the Celtics were the best last season. They both proved it when it counted the most. Bring on 2009-2010.

Sagarin wrote:

Can't believe this thread is still front-page material.

Bandito wrote:

Blame Lamar for that. He just can't give it up.

Sorry about that Bandito, but I sincerely doubt that I am going to lose TOO much sleep over it.

The bottom line is that when you are a trash-talking @$$hole like Dark Knight or Brian Boston were in the earliest parts of this thread, the payback is a b!tch!!!