Sports Redux: Putting Down the Clamps

One quarter of the way there. And in the matchup of the MVP versus the defensive team of the year, the Celtics shook off some first-half shakiness to put the defensive hammer down on LA, flummoxing Kobe Bryant and company and taking Game One of the Finals 98-88.

As electric as the Finals atmosphere was (most of the drunks and pink hats seemed to have been replaced by actual basketball fans), the Garden was treated to some less-than-stellar basketball in the first half, almost as if these teams didn't really know one another. Kevin Garnett did most of the early Celtics scoring, while Kobe deferred to his Eurotrash teammates, and at halftime the Lakers had a 5-point lead with no real sense of flow to the game.

The lead was four with 6:48 to go in the third when fate took the air out of the building. Paul Pierce crashed into a scrum under the basket, grabbed his knee and went down. Hard. After a couple of minutes, he was carried down the tunnel to the locker room. Not a good feeling. "Man, it can't be over like this," Pierce later said. It wasn't. The Truth reached into the Willis Reed/Larry Bird vault, and strode back onto the floor a couple minutes later to raucous applause, which only got louder when he stuck two straight 3's to turn a 2-point deficit into a 4-point lead that the C's never gave up. Ray Allen and James Posey also hit big 3-pointers, while both of them (and Pierce) combined to keep Kobe throwing bricks and, more importantly, off the free-throw line.

(In LA, they think Pierce was embellishing his injury. Snort.)

Want some telling numbers? The C's outrebounded LA 46-33. The Lakers hit one field goal in the last 6:50. The Celtics even took seven more free throws than the Lakers, which frankly shocked the hell out of this biased observer. But the best number of all: 1-0.

Did someone say these weren't your grandpa's Devil Rays? Well, these modern Rays came in with a game-and-a-half lead, and left Fenway 1 1/2 back and steaming after a bench-clearing brawl. Kind of looks like the old D-Rays after all.

Manny's 3-run homer (shhh...11 game hitting streak....) in the first would have won the game all on its own, but there was a lot more excitement to come. Coco Crisp, who ticked off Tampa with some hard slides, got plunked by starter James Shields in the second. Coco went out and landed a good hard hit on Shields as both benches emptied. Shields, Crisp and hard-swingin' Jonny Gomes were all given the rest of the night off.

Then, probably about something related to the brawl, Kevin Youkilis and Manny Ramirez went a little loco in the dugout and had to be separated. Crisp: "I was eating next to Youkilis and said I don't want to know [what it was about]". Manager Francona was candid: "I think they were just exchanging some views on things." Oh, and Jacoby Ellsbury jammed his wrist catching a fly ball. Oh, and the Sox won 7-1. And the question of "Fiercest Rival of the 21st Century" just got slightly more interesting.

Photo by Elise Amendola/Associated Press.