Blown Out

The Boston Celtics lost by thirty points last night, so you know what that means:

CLEVELAND — It was all going a little too smoothly.

The Celtics beat the Cavaliers in Games 1 and 2 of the conference finals last week and the NBA’s schedule-maker gave them almost four full days to read and hear about how great they were . . . and how the Cavaliers were finished . . . and how the Celtics were bound to meet the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.

It was a little bit much, no? Brad Stevens was prematurely anointed Coach of the Century, Jayson Tatum was the new Paul Pierce, and Marcus Smart was suddenly the best Celtic to come off the bench since John Havlicek in the mid-1960s.

Note that Shank's applying his patented technique here - build up a local team beyond all reasonable expectations so you can gloat for much longer when the team inevitably fails to meet those unreasonable expectations:

Back in the artificially-loud comfort of Quicken Loans Arena, the still-proud Cavaliers ran the young Celtics off the floor in the first quarter and made this a legitimate series with a wire-to-wire, 116-86, Game 3 victory. There was no beating King James (27 points, 12 assists) at home on the same day as a Royal Wedding. The Celtics played like a bunch of guys who got out of bed too early to watch the nuptials across the pond. They were the Carson Smith Five.

What's Red Sox pitcher Carson Smith's doing in this article? Shank gets to shit on him too!

That's Why They Play Seven Games

Following an excellent Game 1 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers by the Celtics, Shank tells everybody to calm down:

It would be good at this moment for Celtic fans to take a deep breath and pump the brakes on plans to travel west for the NBA Finals.

I’m not saying it won’t happen, but the past teaches us that it would be best to wait a few more games before buying plane tickets to San Francisco or Houston.

The upstart Celtics shocked the basketball world, thrashing Team LeBron, 108-83, in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals Sunday afternoon at the Garden.

Decent column, actually.

Doubling Down On Stupid

If you've been following the NBA Finals, you may have noticed how talented the 2016-2017 Golden State Warriors are. They were one win away from an accomplishment no other NBA team has ever done - winning every single playoff game without losing a single game. They have blown out the Cleveland Cavaliers twice on their home floor and will play tonight, once again on their home floor. Rational observers would conclude that tonight's game will be Mission Impossible for the road team, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Then there's this guy:

I’m pulling for the Cavaliers, and for good reason

Go Cavs. Go LeBron. Bring the NBA Finals back to the Q, back to the land of the $3 Pabst Blue Ribbon, back to the city where Oil Can Boyd once said, “They built a ballpark by the ocean.’’

I don’t know about you, but I am loving these NBA Finals and I don’t want the series to end. The likelihood, of course, is that Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and the rest of the indomitable Warriors will finish off the Cavaliers on Monday night at Oracle Arena. confetti and superlatives will fly.

Durant will get his unearned ring and the “Warriors are the greatest ever” narrative will resume. I might have to submit that, like the UConn women, the Warriors are ruining their sport (only kidding, Geno).

He's delusional. Kevin Durant's the reason Golden State's been as good as they've been. You can make the argument that Durant's been playing as well as Lebron has. It's insulting to read something this ignorant, but we're reading a column by Dan Shaughnessy, so it comes with the territory.

But wouldn’t it be much better if the Cavs beat the Warriors in Game 5 and bring the series back to Cleveland for Game 6? Wouldn’t it be great to see the front-running Warriors play with some actual pressure for a change? Wouldn’t it be great if the Cavs could fly Kevin Millar into town and have him start telling everyone some basketball version of “Don’t let the Cavs win this game tonight. ’Cause then they got Schill and Pedro and anything can happen in Game 7!’’

Nothing reeks Shank quite like a Red Sox reference in an NBA Finals column!

I give you all of that. But Durant’s shameless ring-chasing (“Can’t beat the 73-win Warriors as a member of the Thunder? Think I’ll join them”) and the rush to anoint the Warriors best ever has made me a Cavaliers fan.

Question for Shank - how different is this from, um, LeBron James joining the Miami Heat years ago? Shank's suffering yet another case of Convenient Memory Loss in order to make a point.

And, of course, we need to mention Larry Bird! and those Celtics / Lakers teams of yore:

The star power of this matchup is as good as the NBA has offered since Celtics-Lakers gave us Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin McHale, James Worthy, and Robert Parish all in the same series. Those guys faced one another three times in four years. Now we have LeBron, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, Durant, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, and Curry. We have had memorable moments in every game.

This is a quintessential Shank NBA Finals column as they get, Shankisms and all. Thank the Almighty we're one Warriors win away from not having to read another one for fifty weeks.

It's Over For The Celtics

Shank writes the dirt nap for the 2016-2017 Boston Celtics.

Someday we will look back at this series and wonder exactly how the Celtics won a game and managed to throw a legitimate scare into LeBron James and the World Champion Cavaliers.

Ultimately, this series was men against boys. It was Monstars of Space Jam vs. No Stars of Boston. It was LeBron and Kyrie Irving against Kelly Olynyk and Gerald Green. What a beating.

LeBron and Co. demolished the Celts, 135-102, on Thursday to clinch the Eastern Conference finals, 4-1, to advance to a date with the Warriors in an NBA Finals rubber match that is expected to be one for the ages. It’ll be a seventh straight Finals for LeBron, who has won 13 consecutive close-out games since 2009.

...but not before he backtracks a bit:

The 2016-17 Celtic season goes into the books as a success. Brad Stevens’s fourth campaign yielded a conference-best 53 wins, playoff conquests of the Bulls and Wizards in the first two rounds, and a measure of nobility in the conference finals loss. The Celts played well in two games in Cleveland, managing to come back from a 21-point deficit to win Game 3 and racing to a 16-point lead in Game 4.

Backhanded Compliment

That's how Shank starts out his latest column on the Boston Celtics:

CLEVELAND — The Celtics are in the way. They are the little brother who stays in the TV room yapping all night, clueless that his big sister and her boyfriend would like to be left alone.

NBA America, ESPN, ABC, and the rest of the hoop-watching world can’t wait for the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors to meet in their third consecutive Finals. It’ll be Ali-Frazier III. The Spectacle at the Oracle. The Zoo at the Q. LeBron James vs. Kevin Durant.

But your No-Star Boston Celtics are still in the way. For at least one more game.

And Shank continues the attempt to deceive his reading audience:

Such is the national narrative that fuels the ever-disrespected Celtics, who started the playoff run hearing that they might be the worst No. 1 seed in NBA playoff history.

And they heard that from Shank himself, on multiple occasions:

Are these Celtics the worst No. 1-seed in postseason history, or are they a worthy lot, bound for the conference finals and perhaps capable of stunning the Cleveland Cavaliers and advancing to the NBA Finals?

I Stand Corrected

It looks like Shank did a column after all, and he leads off with a bit of hyperbole:

CLEVELAND — This was impossible.

I can’t believe what I just saw.

The Boston Celtics, on the cusp of what looked like a certain Four-Game Sweep and abject humiliation in the Eastern Conference finals, beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 111-108, Sunday night on a last-second 3-pointer by Avery Bradley.

That’s way too simple. And there was nothing simple about any of this.

Let’s mention that the Celtics were blown out in the first two games of this series. They lost Game 2 at home by 44 points and were 16-point underdogs for Game 3. They trailed by 21 in the second half . . . And then came the ferocious comeback, capped when Bradley took a nice feed from Marcus Smart and rattled home his game-winner.

Quite the attitude change from his last two Celtics columns, isn't it?

I'll let the first Globe comment sum things up:

Pure chutzpah on your part, Tomato Can Dan. You couldn't throw the dirt on this team fast enough after game 2, and now it's like that never happened. You make politicians look honest.

Tough Call Made

Celtics win = no Shank column.

The Beatdown Continues - II

Another big loss by the Boston Celtics, another column shitting on those Celtics by Shank.

If you are a citizen of Green Team Nation, you can say it in any language and it still comes out the same.

Je suis Tomato Can.

Ich bin ein Tomato Can.

This is the 1992 Olympics and the Celtics are Angola playing the USA’s Dream Team.

The world champion Cavaliers did it to Boston again Friday, embarrassing the Celtics, 130-86, in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals, to take a 2-0 series lead home to Cleveland. It doesn’t seem to make any difference where the games are played. It feels like Celtics and Cavaliers could play one another until Labor Day and nothing would change. Cleveland is just better. And the Celtics, evidently, are just happy to be here. Game 2 was abject humiliation as the locals fell behind by an unthinkable 72-31 at halftime.

The Beatdown Continues

The Boston Celtics lost Game 1 of the NBA Eastern Conference finals last night to the Cleveland Cavaliers, 117-104. You bet your ass Shank wrote about it!

What were you expecting? Brian Scalabrine announcing a run for mayor? Free cigar night on the Red Auerbach court? Larry Bird, Robert Parish, and Kevin McHale turning back the clock, walking through that door, and leading the Celtics over the World Champion Cavaliers on the way to Green Banner No. 18?

Sorry.

After winning a pulsating Game 7 vs. Washington on Monday, and hitting the Lottery jackpot Tuesday, the Celtics were throttled by the Cavs, 117-104, in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals on Wednesday night at the Garden. Don’t let the final score fool you. This was a wire-to-wire beatdown. The Celtics trailed by 28 in the third quarter.

Note how gleeful this column reads; that's my big takeaway from it. But wait - it gets better!

We said all along that just getting to the conference finals would make this Boston basketball season a success.

And what were we saying about the team last month?

On now with @ZoandBertrand til 1. We are talking about how we'll rip the C's if they lose in first round. (They won't).

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) April 11, 2017

Then there's this passive - aggressive sentence:

A pregame video on the big board featured clips of national commentators disrespecting the Celtics, suggesting Boston might be the worst No. 1 seed in playoff history.

What were you saying last month, Shank?

Are these Celtics the worst No. 1-seed in postseason history, or are they a worthy lot, bound for the conference finals and perhaps capable of stunning the Cleveland Cavaliers and advancing to the NBA Finals?

I think we know the answer. Today’s Celtics fall in between the two extremes. They are not total frauds reaping the benefits of the Tomato Can NBA East. But nor are they championship driven.

This son of a bitch is absolutely shameless, thinking readers will forget what he wrote a mere month ago.