Live From The Nosebleeds

If you want unadulterated analysis of basketball, whether it's the NBA, college basketball, or some pick-up game I saw yesterday, take a gander at my blog.

Friday, May 01, 2009

Amazing Happened

It's been a good two hours or so since the epic Bulls/Celtics Game Six ended with the Chi tying the series, setting up a seventh game in what many people are calling the greatest first round series ever. And I'm still trying to digest everything that happened.

Clutch plays. Bone-headed execution. Weird coaching. This game had a little bit of everything. Looking back on it, I think I genuinely enjoyed watching this game more than the Syracuse/UConn game, simply because in that game there were a ton of choking offensive sets and by the end the quality of basketball was like watching 60-year-old men playing a rec league game: intriguing, sure, but definitely awkward. Sure, there were plenty of awkward moments in this game, too, but down the stretch the overall quality of this game was better.

It started getting real interesting at the start of the 4th. The Bulls were up 83-76, but I saw some signs that indicated that their adrenaline was starting to run out. I told my dad, "I think the Celtics are going to win this game." He laughed. Almost immediately after I said that, the Bulls went on a 5-0 to extend the lead to 12. Cadence comes running up to me and says, "I wanna put my jammies on." Not a huge deal at the time. I figured since the Bulls had extended the lead and it seemed as though Ray Allen and Paul Pierce were cooling off, I was safe to go upstairs and get her ready for bed. Cadence and I get upstairs, where she proceeds to tell me, "Nevermind, daddy. I'll wait until mommy gets back from school." Cool with me, I get to watch the rest of the game.

As we're walking back downstairs, I hear Kevin Harlan yelling something about Allen hitting a huge three. Crap. I run into the family room and peep the score. 91 up. Allen goes nuts some more and the Celts push the lead to eight. Oh well, looks like this series is coming to an end.

Right?

No... of course not. The Bulls get some stops and start to chip away. Derrick Rose lay-up. John Salmons jumper plus the foul. Then, Brad Miller, who was absolutely brilliant tonight after two brutal missed free throws at the end of Game Five, hits a wide-open three, cutting the margin to two with a minute and change left. ANOTHER STOP, and then on the other end Miller gets the ball at the top of the key, makes the world's slowest shot fake but somehow gets Kendrick Perkins completely turned around so that he can basically go into the lane for an uncontested lay-up. Tied.

This was around the time I text my friend Hakeem the following words:

"This is the most schizophrenic game I've ever seen."

Oh, but it just gets weirder in OT. 40 seconds left in OT and the Celtics have the ball out of bounds near half-court with three ticks left on the shot clock. Doc Rivers uses a time-out, leaving the Celtics left with just one. So, Rivers is probably Rembrandting that dry-eraser board, saying something along the lines of, "Get Pierce or Allen the &^$*in' ball!"

Out of the time-out, they STILL can't get the ball in. Rondo has to burn another time-out.

And, so, out of that time-out, a time-out where the same strategy was probably repeated, Glen "Big Baby" Davis somehow ends up with the ball 20 feet out and has to throw up a stepback jumper... that somehow finds nylon. Glen Davis? Sure, why not?

Impressive... except you now have about 36 seconds left, and while you may be up two now, you have no time-outs in the piggy bank. So, of course Salmons racks Paul Pierce and hits a lay-up, leaving the Celtics with no time-outs and 23 seconds left. And, what happens? Just one of the most awkward fadeaways I've ever seen from Pierce as his entire team watches him in awe for the remaining 15 seconds of the game while he pounds the air out of the ball.

Ugh.

So, the Bulls have all the momentum going into OT #2, take a three-point lead into the final 16 seconds. This is what I would be saying if I was Vinny Del Negro:

"One stop and you force a Game Seven. One stop. You KNOW they're going to go to Allen. He's somehow found the fountain of youth and is 26 again. He truly believes he can make any shot as long as he's within the Illinois state lines. Deny him... and if he does get the ball despite all this preaching, FOUL HIM... not while he's shooting of course because that'd just be dumb... just make sure he does not get off a three."

Kirk Hinrich played brilliantly on the defensive end for much of the night on Pierce. We probably won't remember that because... you guessed it, Allen used a high screen, got some daylight and canned a three-ball right in Hinrich's mug.

Jesus Shuttlesworth, another OT.

It had to end, I just had no idea who was going to end it. Allen? Rose? Pierce? Salmons?

Joakim Noah.

Coach Albert, my old high school coach, used to get absolutely horrified whenever one of his bigs used to handle the ball, mainly because bad things happen when bigs handle the ball. Now, of course the game has evolved within the past decade and now most of the bigs can handle the ball like guards.

But, until tonight, I didn't think Noah was one of those guys.

When he put his head down and went to the basket, I kept thinking to myself, "He's going way too fast, he's so out of control. He's going to bounce the ball off of his foot and the city of Chicago is going to banish him." But, he pounded the ball all the way to the rim with Pierce on his hip, took off from three or four feet inside the free throw line and threw it down over Pierce, who was too tired to Rondo him to the floor.

Now that was sick!

Great way to punctuate such a great game... but I just can't end on that note, not when the Celtics STILL should have won the game. Down the stretch, Allen hit a ridiculous 21-foot jumper over Noah's outstretched arms. House hit a wide-open 21-footer in the waning moments as well. What's the problem with those two shots? Clutch as they were, to me they will simply be remembered as two of the worst makes in this series... because each player should have had the awareness to scoot an extra foot back and turn those extra long twos into threes. People ask me all the time why I take so many deep threes. The answer? I don't want there to be any question whether or not I was behind the line.

But, I digress. Despite all the weird stuff, this was by far one of the greatest games I've ever seen in a series that has already been outstanding. I can't gush about it enough. At this point I don't even care who wins.

If Game Seven is half as good as any of the five classics we've seen in this series (damn that Game Three), it might be worth a sick day to watch it unfold.

Just kidding, Lowe's. My Sidekick will keep me informed.



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