This weekend was exhausting

June 9th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

It’s been a long time since we don’t a Monday morning recap of the weekend’s sports, but think about everything that happened this weekend:

– Euro 2008 kicked off, featuring four matches on both Saturday and Sunday
– Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer faced off in the French Open final
– Big Brown attempted to win the Triple Crown
– The U.S. faced the No. 1 team in the world, Argentina, in an international friendly
– The Lakers and Celtics played Game Two of the NBA Finals

I’m almost positive I’m missing stuff. Like, somewhere, Tiger Woods probably played a hobbled round of golf. College football players were probably doing nefarious things after summer practice. NASCAR probably had some sort of circular driving competition. A tree fell in a forest. Etc.

So, in the spirit of comprehensiveness, let me see if I can remember everything I felt about sports this weekend:

CONTINUE READING THIS POST –>

Bill Plaschke, M.D.

June 6th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

There are a few things to remember about last night’s Game 1: Kobe weirdly switching things up from the first to second halves, Garnett’s ferocious put-back slam that sealed the game, Paul Pierce’s consecutive threes to open the lead, and, yeah, OK, Pierce’s injury. It wasn’t much of a turning point — the whole thing felt a little anticlimactic to me, and no, this is not Willis Reed — but without the benefit of retrospect, it was a pretty big deal.

Of course, Pierce was just faking. Totally faking. So says the Plaschkenator:

The “Rocky” theme played. The crowd roared. Pierce hobbled out with drama dripping from every step. He was so hurt, he immediately began sprinting around the stunned Lakers defenders. He was in such pain, he hit consecutive three pointers late in the period that gave the Celtics the lead for good.

Beyond the obvious rejoinder here — the fact that people sometimes do play extremely well under pain — Bill is aware of the concept that some injuries heal quickly, right? As he notes, the Celtics diagnosed Pierce with a strained meniscus. So are the Celtics faking the diagnosis? Or is it an injury prone to short bursts of pain, followed by a fast recovery. Ballhype commenter Jahneevotz explains all:

With that kind of injury mechanism, you can flip the corner of a meniscus over within your knee joint.  The meniscus is the moon shaped fibrocartilage structure between the femoral and tibial articular surfaces.  This results in some excruciating pain similar to stepping on a sharp piece of glass.  But since your muscles are contracting across the knee and pulling the joint surfaces together, the pain doesn’t immediately go away when you unload the limb.  Then, given relaxation or manipulation, the joint space can be opened up and the meniscus can flop back flat and the pain is gone.

That sounds like an educated, scientific explanation for Pierce’s game last night. But no, I’m going with Plaschke on this one. Pierce faked it for the drama. Totally.

Red Auerbach was ahead of his time

May 30th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

Flopping is nothing new. Hopefully, though, that era is over.

Hey Spurs: This is why you lost. You don’t piss off the ghost of Red Auerbach like this for so many years. He has a way of keeping the universe in balance. Kwame Brown for Pau Gasol doesn’t just happen, you know.

{Bullets Forever, via FanHouse}

Noted Boston white people stacking for the bloods

May 1st, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

Well, this is awkward. At the intersection of Paul Pierce randomly throwing up the pinched thumb-index glory that is the Blood calling card — or something like that; I’m in way over my head here — and actual gangsterism comes these photos, via Injury Rate at FanIQ. Little known fact: Tommy Points are like white people’s reppin’. Really, this makes total sense.

Bill Simmons is going to blow his brains out

May 23rd, 2007 | Posted by PostmanE

How funny was that? Come on, right? For almost six months Simmons has been railing on about the Celtics’ draft, and to be honest, I sort of agreed with him: Celtics fans deserved a little goodwill considering the Duncan draft and the rest of the nonsense over the past 10 years or so. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t laugh my ass off when the Celts came up with the No. 5 pick — No. 5!! — and ESPN was obligated to show about 100 different Celtics fan reactions. Too funny.

So, in his honor, here’s a little roundup of the reaction to the lottery last night. And hopefully Bill can come to grips with this; we don’t want him pulling an A.J. Soprano or something.

Lion in Oil: Taking it back to the Sports Guy, he can’t be happily married to his Boston teams. If they were always winning, he wouldn’t have anything to write about, considering how limited his topics already are. But it’s the frustration, the losing, and the angst that gets him going. And that is what ultimately makes him successful. If all Boston teams went undefeated, it would be a yawner. He’d be boring. With his Hollywood experiences Simmons knows this all too well, and as painful as it must have been as a fan to see Oden and Durant slip away, he must have been smiling on the inside, for now he has a column topic for the morning.

Bob Ryan: Fifth!

“I paid off the leprechaun this morning,” sighed Tom Heinsohn, who was the Celtics’ representative, “and he lied to me. Leprechauns will do that.”

Bye-bye, Greg Oden, the next great franchise center. Bye-bye, Kevin Durant, an explosive 6-foot-10-inch forward who may not guarantee you a championship but who will at least keep folks highly entertained for the next 10 years. Fifth! The horror!

True Hoop: Wow. Really, I mean … wow.

I don’t want to put myself in the middle of the story or anything, but I can’t shake the feeling that I did this. Clothespins fashioned as butterflies with my daughter’s face on them now have a 100% success rate in bringing home the best possible draft pick.

I am not convinced that that this is guaranteed to be a Greg Oden pick, and I imagine this’ll be like the Dwight Howard/Emeka Okafor draft where no one will really know for sure until David Stern says the name.

Larry Brown Sports: I’m not one to jump to conclusions or anything, but, let’s jump to a conclusion. Portland will take Greg Oden. They will take the Ohio St. center, and they will ride him to an NBA title.

FanHouse: Final thoughts: Both Oden and Durant end up in the Western Conference. WHAT THE HELL?! Luckily, if Portland and Seattle fans collectively burn their cities down in joyous revelation, there’s a lot of water around to help put it out. Phoenix has had a terrible week… knocked out by David Stern’s iron hammer and Nique’s lucky pink tie. Yikes. And Milwaukee… so much for launching into the Eastern Conference Finals next year.

That’s all for us, folks. Remember Bill: it’s going to be OK. Corey Brewer is a very nice player, I hear.

Pittsnogle signs two-year contract with the Celtics: Our hearts go pitter-patter

July 26th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

Back in June, we felt the biggest NBA Draft snub was Kevin Pittsnogle. If the Knicks were going to go ahead and nab this guy in the first round, Pittsnogle had to have gotten picked up at some point, right? Nope. Dude has a baby to support, let’s get him to the NBA and fast! We waited for the news.

And as E so aptly put it back then, “We did expect Pittsnogle to get the nod, though, considering his size, versatility and consistent success in college. Lack of athleticism probably killed him, but man…that dude was good, despite his ridiculous tattoos. Unfortunate.”

Unfortuate, indeed. But, the day has arrived. After spending some time playing in the summer league with the Heat, Big Pitty signed a two-year contract with the Celtics today.

We think his tattoos will be the perfect accessory to a green Celtics jersey, no?

Pittsnogle definitely has talent, great range for a big man and was successful as hell in college. Hopefully, his collegiate game translates to the pros.

Remember kids, your dreams can come true.