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The Boston Garden vs the Fleet Center
by Jon Finkel / April 21, 2002

Picture the Boston Garden as a legendary prize fighter. One day, he gets knocked out by a young buck named Fleet Center, who steals the Garden's legendary parquet shoes. R. Kelly writes the Garden a retirement song and the Fleet Center moves on, baring the burden of carrying the Garden's legacy.

At first, he doesn't do well, losing fight after fight, season after season, until suddenly, seven years after originally having been passed the crown, there is hope that maybe the Fleet Center could regain some of the Garden's dominance. But the Fleet Center gets a little cocky and forces the Boston Garden out of retirement. The Garden says he's going to get back in shape and challenge the young Center. They square off at the press conference.

THE PRESS CONFERENCE

Red Auerbach is standing at the podium announcing the match between his two Prize Fighters. Sitting next to the Garden are his team of 28 Hall of Famers, with Bird, Parish and McHale sitting closest to center. To the right, the Fleet Center, with only two promising stars, Walker and Pierce, as his posse. The Fleet center looks completely outmatched while the Garden stares across the podium, exuding confidence. The young, cocky Fleet Center dishes out the first trash talk.

Fleet Center: What you lookin' at old man?

Boston Garden: You can call me old man all you like. I'm an old man with 16 championship banners hanging
around my belt. How many do you have, son?

FC: Aww, that don't matter. It all starts with the first one and with these two guys locked up for a while (points to Pierce and Walker) we'll be knockin' on the door in no time.

BG: Hold on, young fella. I don't think you're knocking on any doors just yet. This is your first playoff series. In your first six seasons you had six losing records. This is your first year above five hundred for Pete's Sake.

FC: Who's Pete?

BG: Never mind. Listen, you have to go back to the '46 through '50 seasons to find the only time we even had four losing seasons in a row, let alone six. And those were our first four years.

FC: Like I said old man. That's all about to change.

The Fleet Center turns and slaps hands with Pierce and Walker. They jump up, bump chests and get rowdy. Walker does his little bounce dance. The Garden turns to the cast of Hall of Famers sitting at his side. They cross their arms and shake their heads disapprovingly at the young Celtics.

BG: Don't get me wrong. In the end, we're all on the same team, but it takes more than two stars to win a championship and most of my teams had three, four or even five. Check out our last championship run.

FC: I hear 'ya dawg, but we're young. You got Bird in '78 and didn't get McHale until '80. We got 'Toine in '96, didn't get Pierce until '98. You also had Parish, DJ and Ainge. We don't expect to win it all on the first one. We need to build up our role players like y'all did. Besides, we've come a long way from the team you left us with. It's not exactly like you rode off into the sunset in '94-'95. You made the playoffs with a 35-47 record. Then you lost to the Orlando Magic in the first round of the playoffs. You lost game one 124-77, the worst loss in franchise history, then you lost two in a row at home.

BG: Well, considering that 9 of the 10 players who were on our Celtics that year aren't even in the NBA anymore, I think it's not all that bad.

FC: 9 out of 10?

BG: Yup, young man. Eric Montross is the only one who is currently playing who actually played in that series. At the time Rick Fox and David Wesley were left off the roster due to injuries.

FC: Word?

BG: Uh, yeah. Word. You try winning a series with an out-of-shape and over-the-hill Dominique Wilkins, a new Croatian kid named Dino Radja, Sherman Douglas and a bench with guys like Derek Strong, Greg Minor and a weak X-man. When you look at that, Chris Ford didn't do that bad of a job. And besides, what team could rebound from what we had to endure in just three years? Bird retired after '91-'92, by '93-'94 Reggie Lewis had died tragically, McHale retired and Parish, the last player left from the '86 championship team, was being held together with duct tape and finally got traded.

FC: Stop whining, gramps. It's like you knew you were losing your sight but refused to wear glasses 'cuz they made you look old. You did nothing to help yourself and then you left us to pick up the pieces. And that's what you gave us - pieces. Radja was our leading scorer with 19.7 points a game. Rick Fox was our second leading scorer with 14 a game. You gave us an overpaid and overrated Dana Barros, a declining Dee Brown, an injured Sherman Douglas, a lazy nervous Pervis Ellison, Junior Burrough and somebody named Todd Mundt who played in 33 games. Not to mention we had the inept towel waver himself, ML Carr as our coach.

BG: Well, we got to where we were through good draft picks. Look who you picked up in your early years. What do you expect? Sure, we gave you a losing record, but we also gave you the draft picks to rebuild and you threw them in the crapper. Where is Chauncey Billups or Ron Mercer? And Jerome Moiso, I hear he's sweeping hair at a barber shop downtown.

FC: Easy old man. Are you sure you want to bring this up? The heavy losing may have started with us, but you gave us the foundation of nothing to work with. Acie Earl and Eric Montross? What was that for, so you'd have leg donors on hand when Parish's finally fell off?

BG: OK. Fine. We'll take responsibility for them. But you brought in Rick Pitino and look what happened.

FC: Yeah. Well, his first year looked promising. He won 21 more games than M.L. Carr and they played decent defense. Then he sucked. The Pitino Era was our fault and we take the blame. But, if we didn't have that we may never have been able to start the O'Brien Era.

BG: The O'Brien Era? Hardly. Auerbach had an Era. Russell, Heinsohn, Fitch, KC Jones. They had Eras. Championships define Eras. And you don't have any yet.

FC: Fine. Keep rubbing it in. But you have to admit, the future looks good.

BG: It looks OK.

FC: OK? The way the East is this year, we may go to the Finals.

BG: You have to get past a tough Philly team first. Mutombo already owns you and if Iverson can stay healthy and Eric Snow can keep stepping up, it'll be tough.

FC: Tough is good. Tough is our game. You didn't mention anyone on Philly who can handle Pierce or Walker. They won't let us lose.

BG: So, you think it's a cake walk after them? What about possible matchups in later rounds with Detroit/Toronto or New Jersey? You can't feel confident against all them.

FC: Yeah we do. We can run with any of them and if our threes are falling and our defense is strong, we're going to the Finals.

BG: Easy. Why don't you just beat Philly first?

FC: Will do. But, you can't tell me you haven't thought about a possible Celtics vs Lakers Finals. Renew the rivalry y'all started. Man, that would be tight.

BG: Tight? It would be nice. But even if you get there and pull the greatest upset in Finals history, you'd still need 15 more to catch me.

FC: Like I said earlier, old man. It all starts with the first one.

BG: Well, good luck then. Call me in 50 years and we'll compare belts. Until then, I'm the champ.

Boston Garden stands up and stares down Fleet Center. Fleet Center looks him right in the eye and doesn't blink. Time and banners will tell who wins this match.

Jon Finkel is a regular contributor to HoopsHype.com

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