Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad

It's been nearly a week since we've last heard from the local curmudgeon - let's check in to see how his Monday went, shall we?

Pass the remote.

Monday offered a sports smorgasbord for New England fans. Celtics playoffs. Bruins playoffs. Red Sox-Yankees (hold your laughter). All in a single night in August.

The sum total? Two playoff wins for the Hub’s winter teams and another worthless evening for Boston’s boys of bummer at Yankee Stadium. The Celtics beat the Sixers, 109-101. The Bruins scored four third-period goals to beat the Hurricanes, 4-3. The last-place Red Sox dropped to 6-17, suffering a 6-3 beatdown in the Bronx, their eighth straight defeat.

Our late-summer TV feast tapped off just after 6:30 p.m. when the third-seeded Celtics beat the sixth-seeded Philadelphia 76ers, 109-101, in Game 1 of their first-round best-of-seven series in the bubble in Orlando. Jayson Tatum led the Celtics with 32 points and 13 rebounds. Jaylen Brown scored 29.

From there it's the usual Shank column templates - pine for Boston / Philly matchups from the 60's and '80's, complain about lots of stuff (especially the Red Sox), refer to J.D. Martinez as 'the new Adrian Gonzalez and misspell Celtics coach Brad Stevens name three times (that was spotted by a commenter and since corrected).