Australia is more than just Dingos eating babies… and bootings of michevious 4th graders. They have heroes patrolling the streets in classic Celtics jackets and whacky mustaches… belittling similarly mustachioed douchebags LakersFans with what appears to be some sort of Australian, one-finger salute. This hero is Ryan… who emailed me the photo… andthe circumstances behind it:
pardon the atrocious moustache but every guy in Sydney grows a "Mo" each November in an effort to raise money for prostate cancer. It is called "Movember" and literally everyone does it in AUS, all the companies from white collar to blue collar. Anyway, the endof the month gala party you dress up in costumes…. randomly saw this aussie douchebag wearing lakers gear and told him let's get a picture…he had no idea and thought I was just being friendly…anyway, lets hope for a big w to start off the series
Seriously… everyone in Australia grows mustaches for Movember. Apparently, doing so appeases the Anal Cavity Gods into releasing prostate-curing medication from Australia's bidets. Beautiful.
Ryan also took the time to write out some post round 1 thoughts… andsome thoughts about round 2. Considering his worldwide effort to embarrass Lakers fans… I felt the least I could do is post it. Enjoy:
Gents,
An emotional roller coaster ride for me during Round 1 of the playoffs…which almost cost me my big screen TV (accidentally missed it by about 6 inches with my shoe during the 4th quarter of game 6). I can not remember watching a game with a bunch of people, let alone with Emily sitting on the couch next to me with a look of shock and horror, where I swore, yelled and threw things as much as I did during Game 6 of these playoffs.
After watching Game 5 with Hogz at Sonny McLean's in Santa Monica I though we had seen the low point…and then came Game 6. Luckily for the Celtics all the efforts and easy win's paid off for them as had they been facing a legitmate opponent in Round 1, we might be only talking about the Red Sox for the next few months. A lot of people are very quick to jump on the Hawks bandwagon all of a sudden because they took the C's 7 games….me, not so much. The Hawks…. well basically, you can not turn chicken shit into chicken salad just because the playoffs start. The series played out exactly as it should, sure the Hawks were a much better 2nd half of the season team blah blah blah…but at the end of the day, they are a sub 500 team that does not have the mindset or the talent to show up every game of the regular season and the post season, thus the 4 utter blowouts in Boston. (I don't have the time to go through their players one by one…but I think their ceiling is like a 3 seed in the east at best over the next couple of years unless Acie Law is better than I know about – Bibby is clearly D-U-N)When they came to play… and I mean on the defensive end, it generated a lot of up tempo transition baskets – due to the Celtics not being able to get set in their halfcourt D…as I knew, and know the rest of the country knows, there are a lot of old legs on the C's and if it comes down to guarding guys 1 on 1 they are in trouble, especially in transition. Luckily for them, there is no one in the east who can really spread them out where they need to worry about this. And yes, I drink the kool aid from jug labeled, at the end of the day, the series was a great learning experience for the team and they will benefit them this series the rest of the way.
So what did we learn
1.Doc Rivers is still very very suspect. Some of his 2nd half substitution patterns on the road coming out of timeouts were just terrible. Basically they ignited so many Atlanta runs it makes me nauseous just to type this. The bench should be James Posey, Leon Powe, Sam Cassell (in that order) and that is about it. Tony Allen should be shot, and the rest of the bench should be used as a potpourri to spell guys for 2 – 3 minutes MAX coming off of or before a TV timeout. At no point during the game should Paul and KG be off of the floor unless of severe foul trouble, a large lead/deficit, or just before a quarter end.
2. Kevin Garnett and this team during crunch time in a close game are still unproven. There is no need to revisit the many squandered opportunities but seriously – KG with the ball 3 times in the 4th quarter passed it away, including a key turnover. He needs to take the shot – I know this is talked about a lot, but I can't ever remember seeing something so distressing as his touches during that loss. I don't even care if it is his fade away turn around jumper (even though we all want him to take it to the rack), just don't pass the ball up after you got it off an entry pass unless you get triple teamed immediately.
3.This team is going as far as Paul Pierce can carry them. He needs to be on the floor in the 4th quarter as he is the best inside/outside threat on the team and I think over the past 3 years is second in free throw attempts to only Kobe. Unfortunately for us, we saw in this series, that when under pressure, PP went back to his old bad habits of not maintaining his balance on free throws – hopefully this trend will not carry on and the nerves of playoff road games have left this team.
4. Other quick thoughts – I continue my man crush on Rondo (Kentucky baby!), i love watching him continually take it to the rack hard andcontinue to get clobbered with hard fouls, here's hoping he uses a couple of up fakes this series and saves his body a bit. Delonte/Rondo will be a great matchup to watch. James Posey hit more clutch off balance three's in this series that have been unrecognized because they were in losing games, I loved his game this series. Ray I am pretty neutral on… it's Doc's fault for even trying to have him cover JJ one on one and other than that, his jumper was streaky during the series as expected.
Round 2 thoughts….
It has all been written before so know need to revisit all the details. What concerns me is the C's knack for getting in foul trouble and the fact that Z, when healthy, has always had good games against the C's….something about guarding a throwback center seems to mess up the C's D as there is always a big body, with good hands loitering around the key waiting for a late shift and ready to get Perk/KG into foul trouble early. That being said, and despite all the flaws identified above, the talent on the team will overcome….I like the C's in 6. I look for the first 2 home and road games to be split at each location and then I look for the C's to win games 5 and 6………look for the losses to also be frustrating as hell as guys like Delonte and boo light it up from 3 point range every now an again.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
