Nerds on Sports

Since Dick Bavetta led Los Angeles to victory with a dozen assists (and a couple of gritty rebounds), there will be a Game Six in Boston on Tuesday.  This Lakers-Celtics NBA Finals will wear on for at least one more game.  And I need to make my hopes for it known.  This isn’t an entry so much as a plea to the Gods of Sport.  And to them, I pray today:

Gods of Sport, please allow Kevin Garnett to hang 25 points (including eight in the final four minutes) and 15 rebounds on the Lakers, thus removing his “wilts under pressure” stigma.

Gods of Sport, please empower the Celtics fans to come up with more hurtful and offensive chants to direct at Kobe Bryant.

Gods of Sport, please sooth and refresh the various ailing joints of Kendrick Perkins, Rajon Rondo and Paul Pierce, that they may do your will.

Gods of Sport, please give Pau Gasol the grains and wild greens he needs to survive.

Gods of Sport, please inspire the New Kids on the Block to hold a free concert on the Boston Common if the Celtics win.

Gods of Sport, please let Boston finish this.

The pundits weigh in, as they always do.  But I don’t trust pundits.  They said the Celtics would lose to the Pistons in six, and we proven wrong as Boston battled to a series win in six.  Pundits say all kinds of things, and we believe them despite the fact that their credentials involve a degree in journalism and watching slightly more basketball than the average diehard.

Well, screw them.  Screw them, and to heck with us for trusting their opinion.  Forty-something white men don’t know jack about what’s going to happen on the hardwood this week.  The game has too many moving parts and relies too much on questionable foul calls and suddenly hot shooting hands to be predicted with any sort of certainty.  I’ve never heard of a sports bookie quitting the business because his customers got it right too many times.

So, as an alternative to these men masquerading as fortune-tellers, I have devised a different way to predict what will happen in the NBA Finals.  The difference, however, between me and the gurus is that I am not going to try and convince you that my logic makes any sense.  I used five Celtics/Lakers prediction methodologies to determine how this thing would end.  Let’s jump in, shall we? 

A Coin Flip - Celtics are heads, as they are from Boston, the education capital of the world.  Lakers are tails, since California looks like a well-sculpted butt. 

Result: Tails, Lakers 

A Game Of Smash Brothers: Brawl - I played as the Celtics (Marth, a heady defensive minded player), and set the computer to Lakers (Fox on Very Hard, a shoot-first guy with a lot of range). 

Result: Marth, Celtics 

Last Thing On The Plate - I ate a cobb salad for dinner yesterday, and decided that if the last thing on my plate was a Celtic-green piece of lettuce, then Boston gets a point.  If it was anything else, Lakers. 

Result: Chunk of bacon, Lakers 

Ashmont/Braintree - I either take an Ashmont Train or a Braintree Train to work in the morning.  Ashmont was Lakers, Braintree was Celtics. 

Result: “This is a Braintree Train.  Braintree.  Please stand clear of the doors.  They will be closing,” Celtics 

A Tradition of Baseball Success - I was unsure of who had a better record, the Los Angeles Dodgers or the Boston Red Sox.  What?  It’s the NL West.  Who cares?  So I looked it up. 

Result: Red Sox (apparently the Dodges are under .500, who knew?), Celtics 

After tabulating the scores, it looks like 3 out of the 5 measures I used came up for the Celtics.  How about that?  Looks like another championship is coming to Boston.  To see how many games it’ll take for the East squad to beat the West squad, I used the “Random” Function in Microsoft Excel. 

=RANDBETWEEN(4,7) 

Result: 7, Celtics in 7
 

Looks to be an exciting series!  Place your bets, everyone.

When your Nerds On Sports columnist screws up, the error is admitted immediately. Or whenever we need to fill some space.

Thus: I was wrong about Kevin Garnett:

All the rage in Boston today is over the late night Kevin Garnett trade. And I’m certainly excited for Boston to get him - devil knows the Celtics could use anything up to and including Boston College-level point shaving to get a winning season again.

But apparently, you can get one player in exchange for “five players and two draft picks” and still come out ahead on the deal.

This makes no sense to me. It doesn’t even read right. Imagine Bill Belichick trading eleven players and the second and third round draft picks in exchange for Carson Palmer. Imagine Billy Beane trading his first, second and third basemen for Tom Gorzelanny.

Joke’s on me, apparently, because one player does in fact make all the difference if that player’s name is Kevin Garnett. The Celtics climbed from the basement (this time last year) to championship contenders, playing the Cavaliers tonight.

And it’s all thanks to KG. Credit the man for being in the top ten of Eastern conference rebounders. He’s also brought a new level of professionalism to the clubhouse, with his sunny smile contrasting the legendary sullenness of Paul Pierce.

So nice work, Celtics, and good luck against LeBron. I’m glad to be wrong about you.

There really isn’t an aftermath to speak of.  Boston isn’t burning.  There isn’t wailing and lamentation in the Common.  Folks have just kind of moved on.

The reasons for the collective shrugging of shoulders up in this part of the world are pretty abundant.  We all know that the team isn’t going anywhere.  The foundation of every excellent team (Offensive line, Defensive line, Quarterback) is in place and will be for years to come.  The Kraft family is invested in the longterm success of the team and the facilities.  The genius coach is still a genius coach.  And the aging linebacker corps will get younger and faster next season (though I think everyone’s a little broken up about losing Bruschi and Seau).  Over all, there’s a citywide sense that we’ll all be alright.

A friend of mine that doesn’t follow sports too closely told me that he was always surprised by how Boston fans were so opportunistic in terms of their demeanor.  That is to say, once the Patriots (or any local team) lose, fans can move on to other things fairly quickly and not dwell in misery too long.  I find such an assertion funny, because for my entire life up until 2004, you couldn’t say “Boston fans” without squeezing the phrase “long suffering” in.  Nowadays, Boston fans are apparently seen as folks with an abundance of things to cheer about.  So I did a little thinking on the matter, and I realized that perhaps this friend is right.  I did a quick “pulse check” on the Boston Sports Scene as of this morning, and the results are in:  Read more »

Thanksgiving has, over the years, evolved into the perfect storm of sloth and gluttony.  The trip home is usually exhausting enough that you want to spend Thanksgiving Eve half asleep on an old high school buddy’s couch.  The gut-busting feast on Thanksgiving Proper is filling enough to make you remain sedentary for all of that night, most of Black Friday, and at least half of that Saturday.  The World of Sports has developed a symbiotic relationship with the World of Holiday Over-Indulgence, so as America digests, they can also watch early season NBA games, the final regular season college football games and the Packers take on the Lions.  Not a bad way to spent time otherwise spent reconnecting with family.  Anyway, all of this eating and sports watching put me in a position to make some pretty interesting observations:

- Jon Kitna has quietly evolved from a perfectly average, oft-overlooked quarterback into an insufferable douchebag over the past year.  Read more »

I titled this post as “Boston edition,” but it’s not like there’s going to be another edition. I live in Boston and root for Boston teams. Then again, there is always the hope that someone else here will be a fan of another team and write a competing entry.

New England Patriots
Hey, the team is still undefeated. And peoples around the blogosahedron are waiting to watch the Patriots again when they are 16-0 (Deadspin, Bleacher Report, Blown Coverage, You Been Blinded, ArmchairGM). Now we can add Nerds on Sports to that list becaus: New England Patriots: 16-0 (18-0 if you count postseason).

So, it looks like the Patriots-Colts Pumped Soundgate Noisegate The Skipping Crowd Conspiracies Speakergate was just an issue with the broadcast. But, as a Patriots fan, I can’t believe that this is the truth until I get a bit more closure on the situation. I want a team of investigative reporters to sneak into the RCA Dome and set up some noise meters (like you would find at a terrible talent show to measure who the winner is) and record during games. If that doesn’t work, perhaps some sort of non-football competition between Manning and Brady. Maybe something involving being sexy and making shitloads of commercials. My money is on Manning - Brady may out sexy him, but Peyton’s commercial making prowess is impressive. Read more »

For starters, congratulations to Tom Glavine on picking up his 300th win. The man from Billerica has had a dominant career on a pair of durable legs, and when he’s ready to hang them up, people will see him as a class act and one of the finest of his era. Not a bad way to go out.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the meat and potatoes. With all the sports buzz bounding about in our beautiful burg of Boston, I want to give a quick snapshot of the four major sports (sorry, Revolution) for the benefit of you out-of-towners. What’s going on right now is a level of multi-faceted sports excitement that fans rarely see condensed into once city. With three teams widely expected to make deep playoff runs over the next year, there is an energy coursing through the Boston’s fans that have apparently nullified any bitterness or latent pessimism that longtime residents might expect to find. So here’s a break-down by team, and how each franchise is contributing to this buzz.

The Boston Celtics - Pierce, Allen, Garnett: The New Big Three. Read more »

I’ve got a real hard time with basketball.

All the rage in Boston today is over the late night Kevin Garnett trade. And I’m certainly excited for Boston to get him - devil knows the Celtics could use anything up to and including Boston College-level point shaving to get a winning season again.

But apparently, you can get one player in exchange for “five players and two draft picks” and still come out ahead on the deal.

This makes no sense to me. It doesn’t even read right. Imagine Bill Belichick trading eleven players and the second and third round draft picks in exchange for Carson Palmer. Imagine Billy Beane trading his first, second and third basemen for Tom Gorzelanny.

I know, I know, apples and oranges. But as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I have a hard time with basketball because I don’t like the inordinate influence one player has on an entire team. It’s not about the billion-dollar superstar or the sneaker deal. It’s about teamwork! It’s about ball handling! It’s about the fundamentals! Gene Hackman doesn’t give a damn whether Jimmy plays or not!

The level of despair that Boston sports fans exuded after the Celtics drew fifth in the draft lottery reached, well, truly Bostonian proportions. At that point we were just waiting out next season - Paul Pierce listlessly dribbling down the court, waiting for the shot clock to expire before bouncing the ball off his shoe and weeping - until next season, when maybe the air-driven path of a Ping Pong ball would favor us again. Now, suddenly, with the addition of a guy from the Timberwolves (?!?) to our line-up, SI puts us at third in the East. “Instant contenders.” The hell?

I’d like to be proven wrong, mostly because I like the spirit that comes from living in a four sport city. And Kevin Garnett’s a nice enough guy - just look at him! - that I’ll have no problem rooting for him. But somebody engraved in my brain at an early age that it takes more than one man to win a championship, and I’ll always be skeptical of the exception.