Results tagged “nbaplayoffs”

A day after beating the Phillies 11-6, the Red Sox found themselves on the wrong end of that same score yesterday. That doesn't happen every weekend.

Six games does not a season make. Even though some easily-swayed souls seem to think so. But regardless, the Red Sox are indisputably 6-0 against the Yankees so far in this young season, everyone's happy, and last night's game was about as good as it gets.

A lot of Dates With Destiny from the Red Sox lately. A lot of good signs about the pitching. REALLY good signs. Tim Wakefield flirted with a no-hitter early in the season, Josh Beckett got a phone number in Detroit last week, and last night it was Jon Lester who was just an appletini away from a no-hitter. It wasn't meant to be, but his brilliant pitching and some powerful offense led the Sox to an 8-1 crushing of the Rangers at Fenway.

The Sox have it again. Somehow, they've got it. They finished up a road trip that looked dismal a week ago 6-4, thanks to completing a sweep of the Tigers yesterday in Comerica Park. Tim Wakefield fell behind 3-0 in the second? No problem!

Unless they meet the Twins in October, the Red Sox played their final game in the unlovable Metrodome, and Terry Francona couldn't be happier. "I think this place stinks. This ballpark stinks." Between the plastic roof (colored the same as a baseball), the giant A/C vents, and the listless crowds that are there 90% of the time, it's hard to disagree.

"I gave up five runs,,,what else is there to say about it?" Not the words of a confident pitcher. Sure, you can look at the glass as being half-full, and say that other than leaving a pitch hanging over the plate for Justin Morneau to smack a three-run homer, Jon Lester wasn't all that bad. But we don't deal in half-full here in Boston, so we're equally concerned about the two other guys Jon Lester put on base, and the two other runs he gave up in last night's 5-2 loss in Minnesota.

Whew. All the crisis counselors can go back now. All the newspapers ready to print articles like "How To Talk To Your Kids About David Ortiz" can run something else instead. Rosary bead sales will be down today. Big Papi's finally put one out.

So, Boston, which do you think is worse? The sudden, unexpected fatal heart attack that killed the Bruins last week? Or the slow bleeding-to-death-on-the-sidewalk feeling that permated the Garden throughout the second half last night?

Everybody's still alive. But for very different reasons. Bostonist covered the Celtics and the Bruins live, and they won. Now let's try to figure out why.

We're late getting this thing started. Blame the internet. Blame Comcast's monopoly in Boston's southern neighborhoods. Just don't blame us.

It's tied. But not in the way you'd expect. Sure, Ray Allen had a good shooting night, and Rajon Rondo notched his third triple-double in the playoffs - those are the kinds of things you expect to see in a win, especially one as lopsided as last night's 112-94 triumph.

"This is a nice spring/summer day sometimes where I'm from, so, you know, I enjoy this," said Jason Bay. Bay, as you probably know is from Trail, British Columbia, a collection of 7,000 hardy souls in the middle of a frigid, less-than-hospitable environment*. So the Bronx must have made him feel right at home last night.

It IS over, right? They're not going to suddenly declare this 5-out-of-9, right? They're not going to suddenly announce that they found an extra couple of Bulls points in Game Five, so we have to play out another OT?

Bostonist just finished rereading one of our favorite books, W.P.Kinsella's The Iowa Baseball Confederacy. A tale of time-travel, mysticism and sports, the book's centerpiece is an exhibition game between the 1908 Chicago Cubs and the amateur Iowa Baseball Confederacy All-Stars, which, through a series of events beyond anyone's control, turns into a month-long, time-space bending battle of over 2,000 innings.

The Bulls are the team that won't go away. The Celtics are the team that won't die. This is the series that won't end. The NBA is about an hour away from declaring this a "best 9 out of 17" series.

We were going to lead off with the Celtics, but yesterday afternoon was possibly the most frustrating and aggravating game ever, and so hard to come up with an angle on, that we're just going to talk about it later and start off with 2009's Play of the Year (nominations are technically open 'til December, but come on).

We check the ESPN SportsNation polls often. It's an addiction. Yesterday, the question "Who Will Win the Celtics/Bulls Series?" was red enough to almost double as the Reagan/Mondale election map. Not today, brother.

What a day at the Garden. A little depression, a little mania. A loss, a win. A soul-stealing episode, and a moment of triumph.

    

The State House snazzes up for the Celtics' and Bruins' playoff runs.

CelticsBlog and Adam at Universal Hub have pointed us to plenty of reading material today. We thought we'd spotlight some of our favorite bits:

This was just about as sweet as anything could ever be.

Objectively, the Celtics are right where we want them. They did their job and took one in LA, and have two chances to finish the Lakers off at home. Realistically, though, the C's had a golden opportunity - just waiting there - to snatch another game, and thus the series, away from the Lakers last night, but just couldn't finish it off.

12:02: Allen fouls Kobe to stop the clock. He's gone, and so is this game. Anyone who really thinks this LA team can win two at the Garden? We see a Game Six where the Celtics don't dig themselves into an early 19-point hole, and this sucker ends Tuesday night. We'll keep our fingers crossed...

NOTE: We're going to try to liveblog the Finals again tonight, so check in around 9 to make sure everything's working. It may get a little incoherent near the end. We hope so, anyway.

All right, fess up. Who went to bed at halftime?

Bullpen troubles? Late inning collapses? The Sox have been dealing with these issues lately, so the offense did the helpful thing and staked starter Bartolo Colon to a 5-run first-inning lead last night at Fenway. Jason Varitek, woozy and eventually replaced, capped the first off with a 3-run homer (his seventh) and JD Drew (now hitting 1.043 in June) doubled in a run as well.

We, to be honest, had the exact opposite of high hopes for last night's game. The Lakers were going to be in front of their home crowd, energized, with the referees desperate to be on their side to avoid another four-hankie Phil Jackson press conference. And if you'd told us before the game that Paul Pierce would be a train wreck, KG would be way off his shot, and Rondo would get hurt, we'd assume about a 114-91 blowout.

If you were with us all last night, you know what an intense game it was. The Celtics struggled at first, then spent the middle two quarters blowing LA off the floor, before getting silly and sloppy and watching LA take a 24-point lead down to two before Pierce and Posey iced it, 108-102, from the free throw line.

Well, sending the JV squad out against Felix Hernandez didn't work. Noted. It still wasn't the full Murderers' Row on display at Fenway yesterday, but it was plenty enough, as the Sox' bats awoke to clobber the Mariners 11-3.

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.