WASHINGTON, D.C.  Senator Arlen Specter accused the Boston Celtics of "cheating like a lazy fifth-grader on a geography test" in winning their seventeenth NBA championship Tuesday night, saying New England Patriots' head coach Bill Belichick filmed the Los Angeles Lakers' shoot-around prior to the decisive game six earlier in the day.

Specter:  "There must be a grassy knoll around the Boston Garden somewhere . . ."

"This sort of dishonesty is contrary to everything America stands for, except for legislators who vote on bills that favor campaign donors," Specter said in a hastily-called news conference.  "To those who claim I'm obsessed with bringing down Coach Belichick, I say you'd feel the same way about someone who is always stealing your yogurt from the refrigerator in the Senator's Lounge." 

Belichick:  "You watch--Kobe's going to shoot now."

Belichick was fined $500,000 in 2007 by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for taping defensive signals of the New York Jets, a charge that the Patriots' coach did not dispute but which he said was due to a misinterpretation of the rules.  "As I understood it," Belichick said at the time, "I was allowed to take video of [Jets' head coach] Eric Mangini to see who was doing better on our Weight Watchers Diet competition."

Belichick and Mangini:  "Nice to see you, too."

According to Specter, Belichick's tape of the shoot-around enabled the Celtics to anticipate the Lakers' offensive plays in their 131-92 blowout win in Game 6.  "You can see it in their defenders' eyes," Specter said as he rolled three metal balls in his hands.  "They knew the Lakers' 'Give the ball to Kobe' play, their 'Clear out for Kobe play', and their 'Get yelled at by Kobe during a timeout' play."

Jackson and his "Triangle Offense"

Lakers' coach Phil Jackson said pre-game taping would help an opponent understand his complicated "Triangle Offense", which he has used to guide the Lakers and the Chicago Bulls to nine NBA championships.  "There's no way the Celtics could have known that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the two other sides," Jackson said bitterly as he boarded a charter plane back to Los Angeles.  "Unless they taped the practice or took high school geometry."

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

LOS ANGELES.  Frustrated by a disappointing game five loss to the Boston Celtics in which his Lakers blew a 24-point lead, superstar Kobe Bryant lit into his teammates today and challenged them to be as unselfish as he is.

"We got to play as a team so I look better!"

"I gave them the same speech I've been giving teammates since third grade CYO basketball," Bryant told reporters after emerging from a closed door meeting in which he reduced teammate Pau Gasol to tears by calling a "Eurotrash cream puff".  "I told them--there may be an 'I' in team, I don't know, but there's no 'I' in Kobe."

Gasol (right):  "I'm sorry I bumped into you."

Bryant is generally considered by himself to be the greatest basketball player of his generation, the equal of past greats such as Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Hot Rod Hundley.  He holds the career record among active NBA players for most commercials filmed in Italian (1) and biggest diamond purchased for a wife after allegations of sexual assault on a 19-year old (8 carats, $4 million).

Hot Rod Hundley:  Closed course, professional basketball player.  Do not attempt.

Bryant told teammates that their continued poor play would hit them where it hurts--in the pocketbook--if they didn't turn things around.  "The endorsement deals you all--I mean me--will get if we lose are basically car dealerships, men's clothing store openings and non-franchise pizza places, which are chump change."

Bryant had ten assists in game five, but criticized teammates for missing open shots.  "You guys gotta make those shots," Bryant yelled during one timeout.  "If you don't, I don't get an assist."