Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Basketball, Boston Celtics, Doc Rivers, Eddie House, Kevin Garnett, National Basketball Association, NBA, Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen, Sports, Turnovers
It’s no secret that the 2008 Boston Celtics are having success. . . in terms of their 9-2 record.
The fact of the matter is that Doc Rivers is the head coach, and he doesn’t possess the most pixels on the television screen. In other words, he’s not the brightest coach in the carousel, even if he was essential in leading the Celtics to its first NBA championship in twenty-two years last season.
Turnovers, baby.
The Celtics are almost dead last in turnovers this year, and it’s driving me nuts. Last year they were more careful with the ball, and made smart moves. Now they’re expecting the defense to make mistakes and allow those mistakes to predicate on the Celtics’ success. It’s worked, a little.
Thanks to the multitude of scoring from eclectic of scorers ranging from Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, Eddie House, and the occasional Leon Powe hammering it in on the block, the Celtics have stayed on top.
But this can’t happen in the playoffs. Doc shouldn’t allow it, but we know how that goes. It’s like a conventional thing to do — give a coach a horde of money and a couple of years to a new contract extension if his team wins a champion, besides how they won the championship (a collective group of players playing as a cohesive unit, undauntedly determined to win a championship), but Rivers is the head coach of the Celtics nonetheless, thanks to Danny Ainge. (Thanks, Danny!)
Let me reiterate: the Celtics are 29th in the league in turnovers. That’s almost dead last.
While I was watching the Nuggets/Celtics game Friday evening, I noticed a load of mistakes that hurt them in the beginning AND in the end. The Celtics busted open the game with an 8-0 lead. What happened shortly thereafter was an onslaught of turnovers that kept popping out like the 1950s baby-boom era. Bouncing off players’ legs, Ray Allen letting a ball or two slip from his hands and out of bounds; erratic passes rolling off finger tips. It was crazier than a crackhead.
When Eddie House was chucking up shots at the end of the game, and Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett were almost single handedly keeping the Celtics in the game, House’s incompetent defense proved to be the big weakness, which, in my opinion, is a turnover itself when it seems like your team is playing four guys against five (I’m not acknowledging Eddie brickHouse at this point).
They may be 9-2, but they sure as hell aren’t playing as their record indicates. Where is this supposed reigning championship power? On offense I see it in spouts, but when Rajon Rondo isn’t even in the game during crunch time, and Eddie House is in there for his offensive abilities, despite the fact that Rondo can play much better defense than House, there is trouble.
If you turn the ball over, the other team will score.
Filed under: General | Tags: Blogging, books, Boredom, Boring, Boston Celtics, Games, Grand Theft Auto, reading, Video Games, World of Warcraft, Writing
Video games bore the holy mother-canucker out of me. They are repetitive. Plain and simple. Most games relate to each other in so many senses that if they were anymore alike, you could peg them for being the same game.
I like playing sports games occasionally, but I’m terribly bored by a week after playing a sports game because it begins to become repetitive. The only reason I’m even amused by sports games is because they can mimic real life situations (if you use adjusted sliders to the gameplay settings). (SIDE NOTE: Try repeating those sentences aloud three times fast, because yes, I know, my use of ’sports games’ seems to be a little superfluous, but I’m reminding those hardcore video game players, just because their attention spans suck.)
Games like World of Warcraft, Halo, Grand Theft Auto (though, I did love Grand Theft Auto and managed to play the heck out of IV for a week or two), Guitar Hero, and Rock Band command people’s lives. 50 years ago, kids’ time was consumed by exercise and knowledge. Now it’s consumed by candy and button mashing.
I guess I’ve grown out of video games, and have found that there’s much more that I could spend my money on. A video game can’t keep my concentration for more than 45 minutes, no matter what it is.
I would rather read a solid, formidable book than play video games. If you’re a Boston Celtics fan, what’s better than reading about how John Havlicek and Bob Cousy were the main catalysts of the 1957 Boston Celtics or how Kevin Garnett picked up the 24-win team in 2006 to a 66-win season that subsequently landed championship number Seventeen back to Beantown on June 17, 2008?
Or what’s more interesting than reading about two people who met on the website Yahoo! Answers in the Books and Authors section because of the overrated ‘Twilight’ (by Stephanie Meyer) series, subsequently falling deeply in love with each other?
If you’re a video game fan/addict, that’s no problem — I’m not bashing what you like. I’m only telling you my thoughts on why I don’t play them and why they bore me.
Video games are fun. . . for about a week. Then everything becomes trite and overplayed. I become uncouth playing online and begin to excessively yell expletives at opposing players because the game will start to bore me.
My bore from video games started years ago, actually. Probably in 2005. I would play one game for 30 minutes, then take an hour break, then play again. It couldn’t keep my concentration.
I thought I had ADD or something.
Then, in 2006, I read “T.O.” by Terrell Owens and “Now I Can Die in Peace” by Bill Simmons, and I started really, really getting into reading. I couldn’t stop. I developed an inner-affinity for words and how they were interlaced together. I lost myself.
There’s also a study out that shows you burn more calories in one hour reading than in one hour playing video games. You would think otherwise, but because your mind is working at a torrid pace and your eyes are constantly on the go, you burn more by reading. Cool, huh?
I must be the only guy in the world at 17 who doesn’t give a flying flip about video games. Certainly, they’re fun for a day or two, but the boredom settles in. Reading never does that. Not to mention video games aren’t going to get you a career unless you know somebody that knows somebody in the field, and even then it sucks, because if you’re a game tester or designer, you have to go through the strenuous process of playing God-awful games.
Reading is strength. Writing is power.
Do what you want.
I’ll read.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Boston Celtics, Comedy, Humor, NBA, Satire, Sports, Sportswriters, Sportswriting, Thoughts, Writing
Nobody realizes how much the people who write about sports despise the subject they write about. There is nothing they hate more. I know that seems paradoxical, and most of them would never admit it in public. But give them four drinks in a deserted tavern, and you will hear the truth: The people paid to inform you about the world of professional, collegiate, and high school athletics would love to see all sports — except for maybe the NCAA basketball tournament — eradicated from the planet.
What’s depressing is that this was not always the case for people.
So if you want to become jaded and bitter in the shortest period possible, become a sportswriter. You will spend your Friday nights trying to write up some grueling pseudo-informative SLAM Online article until you’ve reached the point where hitting the backspace key wants to make you throw a deadly dart doused in poison at the people or things you are writing about.
That’s not the worst thing about it all, though.
The worst part about being a sportswriter is that no one will ever have a normal conversation with you for the rest of your life. Everyone you meet will either A.) want to talk about sports, or B.) Assume you want to talk about sports. Strangers will feel qualified to walk up to you somewhere and complain about Rasheed Wallace; and if you’re trying to be frank with your ex-girlfriend’s parents, her father will immediately ask you oddly specific questions about the New York Yankees. Just a couple of examples (the last sentence is an experience of mine).
You may have insightful thoughts on the Middle East, religion, or racial disparity, but no one will care; they will be interested in your thoughts on middle relieving or the premise of the designated hitter.
Over time, you will see your life disappear into sweat and depictions of Plaxico Burress contract negotiations and descriptions of the wishbone offense. And you will hate it. And normal sports fans deserve to know this. SO NOW YOU KNOW IT. They deserve to know that people telling them about the Boston Celtics or San Antonio Spurs enjoy pro basketball as much as Christians enjoy watching George Carlin’s Religion is Bullshit.
But I feel like the one guy who accepts one very important truth: The single best part about loving sports is hating sports.
