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5.04.2008

I NEED YOUR HANDS

No, really, I do. I might miss Game Seven tomorrow. I've tried, but still might fail. Travel is hard stuff.

So here's what I propose: All of you, everyone out there who reads this site, live blog the game in the comments section. For me. I'll be checking my mail via phone, so this will keep me posted on what ESPN's Gamecast can't reveal.

In the meantime, watch this video and get pumped. I've been debating for two days whether this is crossing some line, but ultimately decided the innumerable parallels are too perfect. And this is really the only upset a Hawks win would compare to:



Help me! Win, friends! You and them both!

64 comments:

  1. Who's Charlie Wilson in this metaphor?

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  2. Is that a SLU reference, billiken? Larry Hughes fan, maybe?

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  3. So, can I count on your help? Otherwise I might have to hold my entire extended family hostage until I get my wya.

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  4. Thanks for the crazy video. I agree the analogy is appropriate.

    Who will step into the US' role?

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  5. Let the Hawks soar! I need to see some game three type isht from Josh Smith. I believe in ATLiens!

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  6. i solemnly pledge to do my best to help in this holy endeavor. where as golden state felt more like a force towards the end of the season, something more established (if crazy and absurd), atl feels more like the sporadic magic we all see sooner or later. there is simply no other explanation for it. it's not a middle or an end, but a beginning.

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  7. I just hope they don't get blown out.

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  8. There's been talk of Horford playing "better than his age" (implying he's good and can be great), but he fails two minutes in to get 2 after a great JJ feed with a clear five feet to the rim. If he played "younger" would he have gone two-handed for the dunk? Does missing the lay-in prove he's "mature" enough not to risk the offensive foul?

    I'm not sure, but on my fantasy team this year I got the distinct impression that I was being underserved in blocks and points for exactly this issue.

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  9. Hawks running their O (see Horford comment), but both teams have been capital-T Tight, missing open looks. C's are rebounding their misses, though. Six second-chance points in 12-8 game.

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  10. This is a message for anyone in the Boston area: there is an All Points Bulletin out for Ray Allen's jumper. If anyone sees Ray Allen's jumper, please try to capture it and get it to the Garden by the fourth quarter. Be careful, while it appears dormant, it can be very dangerous.

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  11. Yeah, they're all tight- but J-Smith just freaked his way through the lane and missed the contorted roll. KG followed Pierce's miss with emphatic double-mitts on the putback. There's an intimidation in the young Gator I was hoping wouldn't be there.

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  12. Perkins makes his free throw. Is it just me or could he and Big Baby more convincingly pass as brothers than Luke and Owen Wilson?

    Would could Wes Anderson do with this?

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  13. And ... J-Smoove misses a one-footer once again. Hawks are 4-18 from the field and I'd wager 10-12 of those shots have come at the rim. They're just not finishing. Would like to think those shots will start falling eventually, but they're down 20-10.

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  14. Johnson makes the consecutive threes- after the first he falls to the floor for phantom contact that would have gotten Ray Allen the and-1 every time.

    Perkins is huge so far- 2nd block.

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  15. Perkins: 8pts, 6b, 2blk in the 1st quarter. Zaza better start yelling at him.

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  16. Johnson's 3-6, the rest of the Hawks are 3-17. Cassell/Posey is guarding Joe... get him the damned ball!

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  17. Horford drops a decent Bibby feed at the elbow. He's been terrible. So much for that whole "big-game experience at Florida" = "game 7 at Boston's no big deal" idea. Smith's turned it over on consecutive possessions. It's not pretty.

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  18. Absolutely- if the story of the game ends up being Leon Powe and Kendrick Perkins abusing Horford at the offensive end, this will be a sad, sad end.

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  19. Smith picks up his second foul, which means Woodson will sit him for the rest of the half--and as bad as he's been, this might not make steam come out of ears the way it usually does. Brown owns Horford (again) on the offensive end. 34-20, 8 min. left in the half.

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  20. Celtics are getting points from all over with no Garnett. I sense a trend for this game.

    Was that a finger roll from Horford? Weird.

    34-20 C's.

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  21. That Sandler/Baron parody just pisses me off. Couldn't they work in Ashton too? And maybe two "Closer" references?

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  22. oh baron, there are more dignified avenues to hollywood than this...

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  23. Van Gundy--easily the best color guy in this sport--correctly points out that JJ's basically said "F it, let's see if I can win it single-handed, since we ain't winning it five-handed" ... he's started to fire it up vs. double-teams. Hawks are shooting 20 percentage points worse, have committed five times as many TOs, are getting out-rebounded ... good night, Gracie.

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  24. Hawks are guileless, even when attacking. They are not using the first step to get to the basket, they are just running around the lane or taking a long time to feel out the post. It's depressing.

    Josh Smith is unraveling.

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  25. Johnson's 4th three, contested and good. He's the only one who's shown up. "Smith even struggling with his dribble right now... Josh Smith looks lost." 42-26 Celtics with 3 to play in the half. SVG reminds Smith that he doesn't have a jumper. At all.

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  26. Breen: "Smith even struggling with his dribbling." A few seconds later he tosses up an airball with 2 on the SC.

    Shoals, you ought to be glad you're missing this.

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  27. At least I hear the halftime show will be good. Hugo the Hornet is gonna dunk through the ring of fire in a Boston tenement stuffed with oil rags- what could possibly go wrong?

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  28. I wonder what's worse about being Zaza Pachulia, your first name sounding like some sort of euphemism for hot boobies, or your last name being uncomfortably close to patchouli?

    I have to admit, I'm kind of rooting for the Celtics here, I don't know if I can take reading Simba describing "Paul Pierce's Peyton Manning face".

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  29. ABC just played a Boston song that was either not "More Than a Feeling" or one of those anonymous middle parts of "More Than a Feeling" that always sound like another song. Bibby/Tony Allen air guitar this at family karaoke.

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  30. Hawks have 26 with a minute to go in the half. Not promising.

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  31. KG is being guarded by somebody named "Solomon Jones..."

    Pyramid answer: Signs you have no faith in your starters whatsoever.

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  32. Make that 26 at the half. Not promising.

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  33. 44-26 Celtics after 24 minutes. The Cs are so bored that Sam Cassell gave the heading-to-the-locker-room interview and said something about "focus" in the second half.

    This likely won't warrant a liveblog for the 2nd half.

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  34. What's honestly saddest of all about this is that this is probably the best D the Hawks have played in Boston--42 percent shooting (1-9 threes) and 44 points isn't shabby.

    Too bad the offense had JVG and Jackson discussing Bennett Salvatore's steakhouse by the end of half. Hawks WHEEEEE had 10 points WHEEEEE PIZZA PARTY in the second quarter YAY GIMME A KAZOO.

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  35. ALL-ACCESS AT THE HALF: Lebron James spoon-feeding his baby daughter after the break.

    NO NO NO NO NO.

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  36. Pierce buries a three to start the half. Yeah.

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  37. Marvin Williams just clotheslined Rondo out of the air in te open court on the break. Flagrant 2.

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  38. I was gonna go get my Iron Man ticket and BK Steakhouse burger, but hopefully this is a turning point.

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  39. Marvin? Marvin? You were a friend of mine. You stood for something.

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  41. Bibby's confusing "defense" with "dodgeball" again. It's 60-30 with 6 min and change to go. This is a hate crime.

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  43. Nevermind the turning point. The sluggish Hawks can't grab a rebound or sink a basket. I'm gonna go rear end a car in the Burger King drive thru and read my free comic books at the cineplex. Dream on, indeed.

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  44. Why, yes, FLowmax commercial, having BPH DOES sound like more fun than this game...

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  45. Buzz Bissinger would tell you that blogs don't know the difference between Jeff and Stan Van Gundy.

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  46. I would tell Buzz Bissinger that his name sounds like a peripheral character from an Adler and Ross Musical. Which would explain his dated media worldview.

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  47. Big Baby to Pierce, Pierce to Garnett behind his back, KG scores and gets the contact... "Look at my heart! Look at it!"

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  48. Zaza shooting the FT, chants of "USA! USA!". Nice to see Boston hasn't changed much.

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  49. It looks like we'll get no Manning face mention from Simba, but I bet a drinking game played with the occurences of him saying 'eff-you game' would get you seriously shitfaced.
    Cassell being ET is old news, but Rondo is 'if Gollum & Otis Nixon had a baby'. He reminds me of Shoals on Landry (angry at the rim and angry at his own anger), except its more like anger at man's ability to even have such duality inside.

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  50. 83-47 with 9:200 to play. I reind everybody that the Atlanta Hawks are NOT a no-kill shelter. Joe Johnson has one more year to win a playoff series or be adopted by a good home before this team WILL be put to sleep.

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  51. Did it ever occur to Gatorade that the City of Boston/KG's intensity/Wagnerian anti-semitism ties might be subtley ironic in an unintended way? Like, even just a tiny bit? Ever?

    Somebody give me a major corporate ad account, please.

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  52. Who among them will guard the King?

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  53. I strive every day to break free from the shackles of White Man Haterdom. And there's a large part of me that is happy to see KG finally have some success after his Job-like existence in Minnesota for many years. But why does he have to go and dousche it up?

    When Lebron gets in a sissy fight with Stevenson, at least I can chalk that up to a youth still trying to make his name in the world. But KG doesn't get that kind of leeway. Congrats, KG- you blindsided a grown man named "Zaza" with a feathered haircut while up 35. You've really made it now.

    Also, this game tells us nothing about the Celtics going forward, despite what Breen keeps claiming. We already knew that no one looks better when up 20 than the boys in green. Wake me when they win a close one with clutch play from one of their stars.

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  54. @Brenden's Flomax comment
    I had to take Flomax a couple months ago to help pass a kidney stone. That was more fun than watching the game.

    Also, about the Afghanistan metaphor, the Mujahideen never had to go on the road and win in the Soviet Union. Perhaps the Hawks 3 wins at home will be the beginning of the end for the Celtic's short-lived empire.

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  56. i was at the game today and it was disgusting.. the fans were ugly.. i wrote my dad and he wrote back something so totally freedarko that i wanted to share it:
    "What the big problem is is that you are a sports fan...many of the people at the game, and probably most, are not sports fans...
    you are guided by your appreciation for the game which is based on knowledge, reason and good sense. You are there to see and appreciate the effort and talent of the athletes and the beauty of the game. Whereas many of the so-called hard core fans are guided by what they want to call their passion and love for the team which is based solely on their emotional connection to "their Team". As a result of that wrong placed thinking they react with supportive stupidity and frequently make behavioral fools of themselves.
    but you are guided by the substance of the game and reason and logic but when all there is it the emotion feeling get hurt and emotions run high and anger often is the direct result and many fans get carried away to hysteric levels that end in violence of one kind or another. You can't explain anything to that type of closed-minded person or present any other points of view...they do not and perhaps cannot relate to any reason except their own fanatic and sometimes farfetched clinging to their misguided perception of the loyalty to their team. What loyalty, how stupid can they get? There is no value in that! The team doesn't want that kind of fan. Good manners should always led to good behavior.
    I went to a Detroit-Green Bay Thanksgiving Day game many years ago when that game was a Lions tradition and there was much drinking and bad behavior and one of the guys with us made the observation, as follows.
    He said that" where ignonance predominates Vulgarity invariably inserts itself"...I never heard that anywhere else and I have never forgotten it...probably just because it is as right now as then.
    Anyway it might not be right to judge Boston by its lowest and most vulgar sports fans... There has to be a lot of good there, even if not too obvious in some of their sports events."

    i love it. and boston fans- you have absolutely no class.

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  57. Is KG a vulnerable man? Isn't there a quiet, and a kind of nerdiness hidden in the intensity? It was sad when he thought it was a good idea to blindside Zaza like Rodney Harrison and then tried to explain things. Some of his passes-when-he-should-have-shot broke my heart in game six. Shouldn't he save the chest-bearing for another round, when his team beats a legitimate team? I hope that at some point in these playoffs, KG is forced, by circumstance, and by the failure of his teammates to enter the crucible that makes a boy a man. He could be supreme, but right now, it's almost painful to watch him sometimes.

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  58. I don't know if I'm ready for a world in which KG is a Masshole.

    By the way, now that KAW is dead, do I have FD's approval to move on to the BZZZZ?

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  59. After reading Mr. Shoals' preview of Jazz/Lakers, and watching a bit of that game today, I'm overcome with just wanting that series (along with DET/ORL) to end as quickly as possible. Both are so predictable as to make me physically nauseous.

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  60. Atlanta's offense was lost in Bin Laden's cave. And the Marvin Williams takedown was imperial folly. What a big letdown.

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  61. When Lebron gets in a sissy fight with Stevenson, at least I can chalk that up to a youth still trying to make his name in the world. But KG doesn't get that kind of leeway. Congrats, KG- you blindsided a grown man named "Zaza" with a feathered haircut while up 35. You've really made it now.

    My favorite comment of the week.

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  62. Bill Russell sets that pick and the committee to elect KG wouldn't be dealing with this shit.

    I'm so fucking tired of having to defend a top25-all-time-player to Anderson Cooper, because I still don't understand what Jeremiah Wright and scoring in the last minute have to do with anything. Simply put, KG could score 2 points a game in the Cleveland series and still be the best player on the floor; ya got that, LeBron? KG is the alpha and the omega, and a better actor. A psychotic, emotional, spiritual beacon; 7foot, 1inches of kinetic energy designed to clog up passing lanes, cover 2's, and bang with Sheed and Duncan, while being the best passing Big since Walton and possessing the closest thing anyone has to a Dream Shake.

    And yet every year, when the winter ends and the skirts come out, the jerkstores open. And They want more. They want him to be MJ and Magic rolled into one. Wanna-be contrarians begging to be different and new, and yet completely artificial and benign, complaining about KG's yelling or his excuses or this or that. And then telling me I don't know what I'm talking about on the one side of their mouth, and the other side they're saying double doubles and the best defense in the game ain't enough. What More Can He Do?

    Ah....and there's the rub, Ham. Cause no matter how much I defend him and plot my revenge on the naysayers, the truth is....he just doesn't Want to be the man, which makes the other side right. And I'm an American - the other side is never right. Fucking terrible dilemma...But they're right. KG is not, has not, and will never be the general in the last minute, calling and making the big shots that need to made by your best and brightest. Quite the conundrum, because no one is better and brighter than KG.

    But KG doesn't want to be MJ - KG wants to be Charles Oakley, freaking the proverbial fuck out of the other team not with deadly shots, but with picks and boards and the face of death, in the background while other people get the glory and the points.

    He's a soldier, not a general.

    Of course, while generals get the glory, soldiers win wars. And this could be KG's last war.

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  63. In an attempt to make sense of the Celtics-Hawks series, I want to compare it to one of those M.C. Escher interiors, where two inhabitants use the same stairway and move in the same direction, by using different step faces; so that one descends the stairway as the other climbs it.

    Or, to put it another way, Garnett and Smith are each a gravity well.

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  64. Great post by misusedconfusedstrungoutandworse. Although you might need a shorter nickname, you hit the nail on the head.

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