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."
BOSTON. As the final seconds ticked off the clock at the TDBanknorth Garden last night, Glen "Big Baby" Davis, the Celtics' massive rookie, stood by himself, savoring his team's triumph over the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals, his mouth wide open as he looked up at the confetti drifting down from the rafters. "This is great," Davis said, a big smile on his face as stuffed the tiny pieces of paper in his mouth. "All we get in timeouts is Gatorade, and I was getting hungry."
Davis: "Hey ice cream man!"
In the locker room a few minutes later, Davis was overcome with emotion as he was handed the Charles W. Barkley Award for the Most Largest Player in the championship series by NBA Commissioner David Stern. "This is for all my teammates," Davis said as he hoisted the trophy above his head. "They cleared out on isolations and allowed me to attack the post-game buffet."
"Are you gonna finish that?
David is listed at 289 pounds on the team's roster, but he has recorded weights as high as 345 with the wind at his back since graduating from LSU in 2007. "Glen is the kind of guy you can build a team around," said Celtics' coach Doc Rivers. "You could also build a shopping center around him, as long as you had an anchor store like Nordstrom's at the other end of the mall."
Barkley: "Glen has a great future ahead of him, and a big butt behind him."
Davis turned in a breakout performance in the NBA Finals, scoring three points in a fourteen-minute appearance that helped clinch the Celtics' first championship in twenty-two years. "We knew we wanted to close them out tonight in six games," an exhausted Davis told reporter Michele Tafoya, "so I ate game 7."
"Kids, you gotta stop the violence against childhood obesity."
Davis is a fan favorite who gives back to the community through the Glen Davis Fund to Fight Violence Against Childhood Obesity, a cause that is near and dear to him. "I tell kids, we got to stop all this fighting childhood obesity," he says. "You need to just chill and learn to live with it, like I did."
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."
LOS ANGELES. A look at the box score to Tuesday night's game 3 of the NBA finals was as revealing as the clipboard at the end of a hospital patient's bed, according to Dr. Wu Yi Lee, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital a court-length pass away from the TD Banknorth Garden. "Big Ticket has Ralph Sampson's Disease," Lee said. "He need to take it to hole."
The right way
Ralph Sampson was a number one draft pick out of the University of Virginia who was expected to transform the game when he was paired with Hakeem Olajuwon in the Houston Rockets' "Twin Towers" offense. The 7' 4" inch Sampson opted for mid-range jump shots over low-post moves, however, and never realized his potential, causing college basketball scouts to apply the name "Ralph Sampson's Disease" to a big man's phobia of driving to the basket.
World's Largest Point Guard
Garnett was fouled only twice in Game 3, four times in Game 2 and 6 times in Game 1, causing Celtics trainer Ed Lacerte to call for help from high-powered basketball pathologists at Mass General, a hospital that has treated other NBA greats for ailments such as Iverson's Rock-Retentive Syndrome, colloquially known as "Ball Hog's Disease".
Dr. Lee: "Take two Dance Team members and call me in the morning."
Garnett's long-term prognosis is good, but he is day-to-day in terms of his ability to overcome the limitations of the disease, says Lee. "He is one very lucky man," Lee said. "Medical conditions named after athletes can be fatal, like Lou Gehrig's disease, although Sampson ended up in the Spanish League with Unicaja Ronda, which merely sounds like it could kill you."
BOSTON. Coming off a dramatic win Thursday night in which forward Paul Pierce made a miraculous recovery from a knee injury to lead his team to victory, the Boston Celtics today announced that they have added faith healer Jimmy Ray Embree to their training staff.
Embree: "Jesus--make this small forward walk again so he can come back and drain back-to-back 3 pointers!"
"Miracles can happen, but you don't want to count on them," said Celtics coach Glenn "Doc" Rivers, who is not a licensed physician. "Paul's comeback saved us, just the way a good Bible-thumping televangelist can save you."
"He can walk! Praise the Lord!"
Pierce injured his right knee in a collision with center Kendrick Perkins, and was carried off the court by teammates Tony Allen and Brian Scalabrine and Dr. Brian McKeon, a team physician. "There's nothing I can do for him," McKeon said upon examining Pierce. "We'll have to put him down, like a racehorse."
"God wants you to spread the floor and create isolations for St. Paul!"
But Embree, an itinerant preacher who took a wrong exit leaving Atlanta and ended up at the TD Banknorth Garden when he was pulled into the Ted Williams Tunnel by the gravitational force of Boston's Big Dig, volunteered to minister to Pierce by "laying-on of hands", a faith-healing technique.
"Double-team Bryant--Gasol's no offensive creationist."
Lakers' coach Phil Jackson expressed skepticism over Pierce's injury, calling it a "pants malfunction" and a "broken drawstring" in a post-game interview. "People are comparing him to Willis Reed," Jackson said, referring to Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals in which his New York Knick teammate returned to action after a half-time heart transplant and vasectomy. "Compared to Willis, Pierce is a wuss."
Willis Reed, 1970 NBA Finals
But Pierce bristled at the suggestion. "I listen to rap, he listens to the Grateful Dead," Pierce said as he sat in the whirlpool. "You tell me who's a wuss."
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama. Charles Barkley's revelation that he's lost $10 million gambling over the years has led to an outpouring of support in his hometown, where locals point to the good he's done for numerous charities.
Barkley and Doolin
"He's one of our biggest supporters," says Children's Hospital CEO Mack Doolin, M.D. "We're going to stick with him until he gets this thing licked. He just needs to learn how to set limits," says Doolin, who has counseled others with addictions.
And so Doolin is at Barkley's side as he enters Leeds Elementary School to participate in "Spring Fling", a fund-raiser for its PTO. "It's a baby step," says Barkley, "but I've got to start out small."
Barkley draws a crowd of excited fans as he steps up to the Wheel O' Fun, where fifty cents entitles a player to a spin for a toy or stuffed animal. "Fifty thousand on the red," Barkley says before Doolin can intervene. "One ticket at a time, Charles," he says, and the man known as "The Round Mound of Rebound" during his playing days with the Sixers, Suns and Rockets agrees.
"Okay," Barkley says sheepishly before laying down two quarters and winning a noisemaker that makes an annoying "clackety-clack" sound. "I'm gonna shake this baby in Trey Wingo's face next time he asks me an embarassing question on SportsCenter," Barkley says with a mischievous grin.
Trey Wingo
He moves on to the Action Figure Fishin' Hole, where children drop a pole behind a bed sheet and the school's fourth grade class officers attach a plastic superhero to the hook. "I want one of them Ninja Turtles," Barkley says. Behind the sheet, Nancy Rouchka, class president, giggles as she picks Kimberly, the Pink Power Ranger, from a cardboard box and puts it on the line. When Barkley sees his girlish prize he explodes at Rouchka, causing Assistant Principal Morris Byrum to come running across the cafeteria.
"What's going on here?" Byrum asks in an excited tone as the class president sobs loudly. "What kinda clip joint are you running here?" Barkley yells at the hapless administrator, before picking him up and tossing him onto the conveyor belt that takes dirty plates back to the dishwasher.
Barkley moves on to the Pez Dispenser Ring Toss, where he decides to try for the Popeye model. "I like that dude 'cause he's like me--I am what I am." Barkley plunks down ten dollars for twenty rings, but he soon needs to buy more as he collects Batman, Spiderman and Snoopy--but no Popeye.
A half hour later Barkley is down $50 when Doolin again intervenes. "C'mon, Charles--just walk away--okay?" he says as he takes a roll of quarters from the former Dream Team member and leads him out of the building.
Even though he always said he wasn't a role model, the kids are sad to see him go. "I wanna be as good as him when I grow up," says third-grader Tyrone Williams. "Not everybody makes it to the NBA," his dad cautions him.
"Not at basketball," Tyrone says. "Texas Hold 'Em!"
CLEVELAND. Jerry Burke is a Massachusetts State Policeman who hasn't played basketball since he was starting point guard for the St. Columbkill's seventh-grade Gremlins in Brighton, a working-class neighborhood of Boston, yet he found himself accompanying the Boston Celtics, the holders of the best regular-season record in the NBA, as they made their way through Cleveland Hopkins International Airport this morning.
Jerry, second from left, in his prime.
"It's a real thrill for me," he says as boards the team's chartered bus, "but I have to keep my mind on my job, so I can't really savor the moment."
Jerry, on the job
Jerry's job is to protect the Celtics as they face Cleveland in game six of the Eastern Conference semifinals tonight, a task made tougher by the fact that Gloria James, mother of Cavaliers' star LeBron, has been added to Cleveland's playoff roster as a defensive "enforcer" assigned to inflict physical punishment on any opposing player who roughs up her son.
"Mom, don't embarrass me!"
"Gloria is an essential part of our game plan," says Cleveland coach Mike Brown, referring to the off-the-bench spark she added in game four, taking on Paul Pierce after a hard foul by the Celtics' small forward on her son. "You don't come into a mother's house and mess with her son, that's all I'm saying."
"Momma--you got to rotate to the weak side!"
Mother-son tag-teams were permitted in the American Basketball Association along with red, white and blue basketballs, but the NBA forced the ABA to drop the practice in much the same manner that the federal government forced Utah to abandon polygamy as a condition of statehood.
Marvin "Bad News" Barnes
The most famous maternal enforcer in the ABA was Toinette Barnes, mother of Marvin "Bad News" Barnes, who played with the Spirits of St. Louis. She is credited with teaching her son the signature "tire iron" move he used on a Providence College teammate, an incident that resulted in Barnes' suspension. As he left the locker room in his street clothes, Barnes said "News be back 'cause his fans be demandin' it," a quotation sometimes incorrectly attributed to General Douglas MacArthur upon his recall from Korea by President Harry Truman. What MacArthur actually said was "You can take the general out of Korea, but you can't make him drink."
Hello sports fans. I'm sitting out on the balcony of the Vatican, having my morning espresso, going over the sports page of L'Osservatore Romano. Let me tell you, I don't like what I see.
The Catholic Church started out with ten--ten!--schools out of 64 on the Road to the Final Four. So far, 8 have been knocked on their donkeys like St. Paul and are lying in a ditch next to the breakdown lane. We have only two teams in the Sweet 16. This is not good.
"Nothing but net!"
Let me tell you, Villanova or Xavier better make it at least to the Final Four, or there will be hell to pay. Literally.
Mark Few
I'm thinking, for example, of Gonzaga. Every year, the Zags are the darlings of March Madness. This year--eliminated in the first round! I've got a call into the Archdiocese of Spokane. This guy Mark Few--the head coach--as far as I'm concerned he's leftover tuna noodle casserole about to be scraped into the cafeteria garbage bin of college basketball history. And there won't be any nun standing by to tell me to take my tray back to my seat and clean my plate because there are point guards starving in Bosnia-Herzogovinia.
Emeka Okafor
Here comes Francis Arinze, the Cardinal from Nigeria. He's been completely insufferable since he picked UConn to go all the way in 2004. Big deal, he knew Omeka Ekafor, or Emeka Okafor, or however you spell it. Wants to be called "the patron saint of Hoops". Puh-lease. Makes me want to gag. Thank God we have St. Blaise, the patron saint of people who get things stuck in their throats. How ya doing, Frank--nice to see you too. Yeah, see you in the gym later.
St. Blaise: "Try a throat lozenge."
Blow it out your shorts you overgrown ball boy.
I'm looking at my sheets and wondering where I went wrong. Davidson beat Georgetown in the second round--I sure as hell didn't see that one coming. Screwed up my whole Midwest bracket, and the entire game I was throwing everything I had at the TV. Leaning into the low-post to help the Hoyas get better position, setting invisible moving picks to get G-town open looks. Then Arinze walks in and says "It won't do you any good--the game's on tape delay." What a wise-guy. All because he figured out how to work the DVD player in the Vatican rec room first.
I'm pretty sure I'm still the Pope, the direct descendant and living embodiment of St. Peter. They were eliminated in the first round, too. No wait--that was St. Joseph's. And St. Mary's.
If Kansas beats Villanova, and West Virginia beats Xavier, I'll have nothing to watch but boring half-court NBA basketball until next fall.
Remember to check Baltimore Catechism and see if suicide is still a mortal sin.
AUSTIN, Texas. New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton raised the bar by which her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination should be judged in a speech to supporters last night, saying Illinois Senator Barack Obama needed to score a "triple double"--a three-state victory by at least ten percentage points--in the four primaries being held today.
Barack Obama, in "Hoop Dreams" phase.
"My opponent likes people to think 'he got game'," the former First Lady said in a speech that drew heavily on street slang she picked up Maine East High School in Park Ridge, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. "Let me tell you something--he's gonna get a schoolin', and I ain't foolin'!"
Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
The term "triple double" is derived from basketball, where it refers to a game in which a player accumulates double-digit totals in any three of these categories--points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocked shots. It became widely popular during the mid-1980's, when Larry Bird and Magic Johnson would routinely achieve "quadruple doubles", a triple double followed by ten Bud Lights for Bird and ten women for Johnson.
Clinton and Magic Johnson: "When she sets up in the low post, you can't move her!"
The four states that will hold primaries today are Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. Clinton and Obama were both campaigning in Texas today, the biggest prize with 193 delegates and a two-day/one-night Family Pack Special at Six Flags Over Texas, an amusement park, at stake. The candidates engaged in a friendly game of "21" organized by the Democratic National Committee at an elementary school playground here, where an Associated Press reporter picked up a bit of "trash talking" before the candidates threw "rock-paper-scissors" to decide who would get the ball first:
OBAMA: We had a back porch when I was growing up in Kansas, but it wasn't anywhere near as big as that!
Playground hoops: "Yo, Hillary--take a chill-pillary."
CLINTON: Are those your ears, or missile defense radar dishes that are draining money away from America's social ills?
NEW YORK. Encouraged by the success of its business-casual dress code in reforming the league's "hip-hop" image, NBA officials today announced that they will push for a "tattoo cap" when the current collective bargaining agreement expires at the end of the 2011 season.
Stern: "A tasteful 'Mom' on your bicep will not count against the cap."
"We feel it is important that our players not scare the bejesus out of affluent demographic groups with gangsta-style tattoos," David Stern said at a press conference here today. "Otherwise we might as well name the next two expansion franchises the 'Crips' and the 'Bloods'," he added, showing off his "street cred" to the admiration of NBA beat reporters.
"This kid's got a lot of heart, and a lot of epidermis."
Under the proposed cap, teams would be limited to a total tattoo coverage of 61% of the upper arms and necks of players on their twelve-man rosters. Teams could free up cap space by trading a power forward from an "urban" school for a shooting guard from Brigham Young or a flat-footed center from Gonzaga.
Seattle SuperSonics' owners: "Well, there was this girl named 'Tina' . . ."
Player representatives reacted angrily to the proposal. Mark Madsden of the Timberwolves said he wanted to see the bodies of NBA owners in the showers before agreeing to any cap. "Some of these guys may have 'Semper Fi' on their butts. Let them drop their pants and show the players what they got."
MIAMI. As Dorrell Wright threw the ball high into the air above the court at American Airlines Arena here following the Miami Heat’s 98-96 win over the Indiana Pacers Saturday, his teammates released an audible sigh of relief.
Wright: “Whew–glad that’s over with.”
“I hope we never have to go through something like that again,” said Dwyane Wade, referring to the team’s fifteen-game losing streak, a franchise record.
Dwyane Wade: Hobbled by a silent “y” in his first name.
“Don’t be so sure,” said Shaquille O’Neal, the team’s towering center who has been slowed by an inflammation in his hip. “I think we’re in for changes of catastrophic proportions.”
O’Neal: Low-post force, rapper extraordinaire, actor, and now environmental activist.
O’Neal is referring to global warming, which is expected to raise sea levels, contibute to aggravated psoriasis in housepets, and submerge sand-filled ashtrays in hotel lobbies throughout the Miami area.
“I don’t like to make excuses,” O’Neal said, “but me and my teammates have the hottest logo in the NBA, and it’s getting harder to compete with teams from Northern latitudes like the Timberwolves and the Trailblazers.”
Peter Jacobs, a reporter for NBA Today, pointed out that the gradual increase in the earth’s temperatures seems not to have affected the Phoenix Suns, whose nickname is derived directly from the luminous celestial body at the center of the solar system, and who are in first place in their division. “They’re in the Western Conference,” O’Neal reminded him, “where certain guys think they’re so cool,” a veiled reference to his former teammate Kobe Bryant of the Lakers.
Cool!
Global warming is ranked as the number one threat to human civilization among college graduates, ahead of long lines in coffee shops and mismatched socks. Among respondents with high school degrees, global warming slips to fifth place behind “Location of truck keys” and “Whose house we gonna watch the Super Bowl at?” among other concerns.
“No way–you didn’t call ‘Glass’!”
O’Neal, who has played on four NBA championship teams, has become increasingly restless watching his team flounder while he is confined to a starring role on the ABC TV show “Shaq’s Family Challenge”, a weight-loss reality show. He turned his attention to environmental concerns after winning former vice president Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize in a game of H-O-R-S-E.
It’s the dead of winter. You live in a four-sport town, but the World Series is over, your favorite NFL team is out of the playoffs, and your local NBA and NHL franchises have Saturday night off. The last bowl game of the season has been played.
Your wife or girlfriend turns to you and utters the six words that, strung together in the proper order, bring nausea to the stomach of any red-blooded American male.
“Is there any skating on tonight?”
Your tongue is stuck to the roof of your mouth, as if with peanut butter, because without a rooting interest to guide you, you can’t rattle off a televised sports event of greater significance than a non-title bout in the junior flyweight division of the WBA. Or is it the WBO? WBC?
You’re trapped. And, since it’s Saturday night, you decide to be nice to her–for ulterior reasons.
You hand her the remote, and head for the fridge.
Wait–come back. You can learn to stomach figure skating. Really. Just follow these easy “Learn-to-Love Skating!” guidelines:
She’s Not That Into Them. You dread the thought of watching guys salchowing around in sequins and stretch pants. Don’t assume she wants to watch men, or even pairs, however. For reasons that are unclear down deep, but readily apparent on the surface, women like to watch women. You don’t watch the WNBA, do you?
Kowa-bunga!
Look at That Outfit! In case you only pay attention to women’s figure skating when sombody takes a tire iron to an Olympic hopeful’s shinbone, the women’s outfits leave nothing to the imagination, as the foundation undergarment industry used to say.
“The yellow caution flag is out.”
Pretend It’s NASCAR. Just as some fans go to stock car races for the crashes, and some hockey fans only get excited when there’s a fight, it’s fun to watch skating for the falls. If the networks were smart, they’d zoom in on the point where the panties hit the ice and circle it with a John Madden-model video pen to show the circumference and depth of concave impression. “Looks like Maria must be wearing husky sizes now, Carol!” “I think she’s been gobbling down too many linzer tortes, ####.”
Katerina Witt: “Yes I was a Communist informant–so whatski?”
Pick a Villian. Pro wrestling promoters learned long ago that it takes a villain to raise the ratings. Katerina Witt was for years the Barry Bonds of women’s figure skating–unloved, even at the top of her game. If you’re the type that hates dynasties, rag on Michelle Kwan.
Pick a Favorite. The flip side of picking a villain is to select a sentimental favorite–the wide-eyed, white-skated equivalent of the Chicago Cubs. You can then gush over her every toe loop. Sorry, Irina Slutskya is taken–I saw her first!
“Michelle was robbed!”
Get Mad At the Judges. Everyone knows that skating is as crooked as boxing. When your favorite skater finishes her routine, take a deep breath as she picks up her teddy bears and long-stemmed red roses and heads to the “kiss and cry” area. Get ready to explode when the scores are announced. “Only 9.8 for artistic expression!” you scream. “She was robbed!” Storm out of the room, check score of Australian-rules football game on the den TV. Pull a nose hair or two until your eyes water, grab a Kleenex and return sniffling to the couch.
The woman waiting for you there will give you a big hug.
We do so many defensive drills in practice that we do them in our sleep. Man, I come home putting the press on my woman, denying her the ball. It's sad, man.
Boston Celtic Kevin Garnett, The Boston Herald
It was 7:28, and I had my game face on. I put the last glass in the dishwasher, dried my hands with a terry-cloth towel, and headed for the den.
Kevin Garnett
As I walked in, I saw my wife Sarah "Sally" Christopher, a two-time Volunteer of the Year for the Uphams School PTO, fiddling with a dried flower arrangement on the armoire. Just like her, I thought, acting blase right up to the moment of tipoff.
"Are you going to be in here or the living room?" she asked as she turned around. Like I'd tell her where I was going to set up. "Can't say," I said as I picked up the local paper and nonchalantly flipped through the high school sports section. The second hand on the Pottery Barn Scottish Terrier clock on the wall ticked up towards twelve. We looked each other in the eyes, bent at the knees and extended our arms for balance. Bring it on.
That is just so precious!
As the clock struck 7:30, we lunged for the remote and, after a brief scramble, I emerged with possession. "Celtics vs. Kings," I said as I pointed and clicked at the big-screen TV. "You're going to have to go watch 'The Queen' someplace else."
"That's okay, I'd rather spend time with you," she said calmly as she picked up a Martha Stewart Living from the wicker magazine basket at her feet and took a seat on the couch. I wasn't fooled--I know a zone defense when I see it.
The Celtics took a 25-17 lead as the first quarter ended, and I decided it was time for dessert. "I'm going to go get some ice cream," I said as I got up from my chair. "You want anything?"
"No, I'm fine for now, thanks," she said, not even looking up from a photoessay on homegrown herbs. She had learned the game in the hardscrabble Presbyterian living rooms of her youth, in a gritty suburban neighborhood where you didn't get to watch H.R. Pufnstuf unless you were quick to the dial, and willing to throw an elbow at your big sister if you had to.
H.R. Pufnstuf: He's your friend when things get rough.
I scooped myself a bowl of Haagen-Dazs strawberry frozen yogurt--I needed to be ready to run if she decided to switch to an uptempo game in the second quarter. I turned and walked back to the den and saw--Sally with the remote in her hand, clicking for the Lifetime Channel!
Lifetime Disease-of-the-Week Movie: "I just hope you live 'til the next commercial, sweetie."
"Hey, what gives!" I said with a pouty look that I learned by watching Miami Heat coach Pat Riley.
"Gimme the remote, dammit!"
"You snooze, you lose," she said as she watched a mother lovingly stroke her daughter's forehead.
I flopped down in my chair as if I'd just been pulled from a game for a missed slam dunk. "What's the Disease-of-the-Week?" I asked, knowing that someone would get sick and die before I'd see another transition basket.
"They don't know yet," Sally replied. "They think it might be Osgood-Schlatter's Disease."
Osgood-Schlatter's Disease
"What a crackpot diagnosis that is!" I said with a snort. "Everybody knows Osgood-Schlatter's primarily affects adolescent boys . . ."
"Primarily," she said without taking her eyes from the screen.
I decided to slow things down and work the shot clock. It is virtually impossible for a woman to watch the Lifetime Channel for more than ten minutes without breaking into tears. Sure enough, just as they wheeled the girl into the operating room for emergency surgery, Sally began to sniffle.
"I'm going to go get a tissue," she said as a touching commercial for instant cinnamon-flavored cappucino (yuk) came on.
"You getting a cold?" I asked solicitously, if sarcastically.
"Keep up the trash-talk and you can sleep on the couch," she said.
As soon as she was out of the room I set up on the block in front of the cable box and switched back to the game--45-44 Kings, halftime. The Boston Celtics dance team--who go by the name 'The Boston Celtics Dance Team'--took their places on the historic parquet floor of the TD Banknorth Garden to shake some obligatory male-fan-base-pleasing booty.
Red Auerbach is spinning in his grave.
"Oh for the love of God!" Sally exclaimed when she returned as she saw the rock-hard abs that are standard equipment on the underemployed aerobics instructors who succeed in the fiercely-competitive world of NBA fleshpot entertainment.
"I thought you liked dance," I said with an innocent look on my face. "Sure, they're not the Boston Ballet, but then who is?"
Co-Defensive Players of the Game
Sally plopped down on the couch as Rocco and Oakie, our two cats, came into the room, looking for a warm lap to sit in for the rest of the night. I don't like to brag, but they do favor me--maybe because I'm such a sensitive guy.
Sure enough, they both hopped up in my chair and settled down after doing that circling thing that cats do to find the best spot. Rocco took the high lap up by my waist where he could get his chin scratched, while Oakie took the low post on my ankles, which were resting on a footstool.
"They sure love you, don't they," my wife purred with a chocolate-eating grin after our little tableau vivant was set.
"What's not to like?" I asked rhetorically.
"Oh, I don't know," she said with a thoughtful look on her face. "Maybe the way you hog this!"
As she spoke she stole the remote from my hand. I was stuck--I couldn't fight my way through the double-team. "Illegal defense!" I yelled.
Deviated septum: Before, and after.
"You're not going to get that call in a close one," she replied coldly. "The refs aren't going to win the game for you."
Sally switched back to Lifetime, where the ailing daughter was seen walking out of the hospital and throwing away her crutches. "Mom!" she cried. "I'm fine--it was just a deviated septum!"
"Oh, honey, that's wonderful!" the mother exclaimed. "Now we can go shopping for scented candles and potpourri again."
"Okay, it's over," I said. "Can we switch back to the game now?"
"Let's see what's on the House and Garden Channel."
NEW YORK. NBA officials are expressing concern over a new threat to player safety that has emerged in the past few days--crop circles in "corn rows", the hair style sported by many of the game's premier players.
Attempt at alien communication?
"We're taking this very seriously" said NBA Director of Security Chip Ahlberg. "We're not so great on players going into the stands and beating fans up, so it's good to have something else to focus on."
"You want an autograph? I'll give you a freaking autograph!"
Crop circles are geometrical patterns that have appeared in cultivated fields around the world. While individuals have come forward and admitted to perpetrating a hoax with the formations, groups with a looser grasp on reality have nonetheless claimed that the circles are the work of extraterrestrials.
The website www.cropcircles.net asserts that crop circles are evidence that aliens want inhabitants of the planet Earth to form a single, one-world religion. "They think we spend too much money on bar mitzvahs and Christmas decorations," said the site's webmaster, Arnold Stang. "They also pick up radio signals of 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer', and it drives them nuts."
Aliens at work.
Rookie Linas Kleiza of the Denver Nuggets was the first to notice a crop circle pattern in the cornrows of his teammate Allen Iverson during a game last week. "I said 'Allen, what's up with the Navajo sun symbol in your braids, man?' He got all bent out of shape and didn't pass me the ball for a week--not even in layup drills."
"Rook, that is one stupid question."
The last attempt by aliens to interfere with professional basketball came in 1996, when a group known as the Nerdlucks stole the talent of Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Muggsy Bogues, Larry Johnson and Shawn Bradley in the movie "Space Jam."
"Psst--who invited Bradley?"
"We were profoundly shaken by that experience," said NBA Commissioner David Stern. "We're still asking ourselves--why would anyone want to steal Shawn Bradley's game?"
HOUSTON. When the Houston Rockets looked in the mirror the morning after a 100-88 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers last night, they probably didn't like what they saw. They're in fourth place in the Southwest Division of the Western Conference, and Tracy McGrady left the game in the second half with a sprained right ankle.
Afterwards Yao Ming challenged McGrady to step up his game or step down as team leader. Yao's complaint? "T-Mac has no liver," the Chinese center told reporters, speaking without a translator.
"What's he talking about?" was McGrady's reaction. "If I didn't have a liver how the hell could I convert glucose into glycogen?"
The liver, without onions.
Asked to elaborate, Yao explained that the Chinese consider the liver--not the heart--to be the seat of human emotions and the source of inner strength. "For 4,000 years Chinese know that emotions go as liver goes. T-Mac should suck it up--that is all I am saying."
Heart = Liver
Yao substantiated his claim by showing reporters a pirated Chinese CD of the mid-70's girl group "Heart". The rock band's name was translated as "Liver".
Battier: "No, seriously--you can have one of my livers."
The charges are sure to divide a team desperately in need of unity. Shane Battier came to McGrady's defense and pledged to donate one of his livers to the Rocket's leading scorer. When informed that the human body contains only one such organ, Battier rescinded his offer. "I thought they were like kidneys--you know, everybody starts out with a pair."
