It wasn't just us. A friend of Bostonist, who knows and cares more about soccer than we ever will, told us afterwards, "That was a terrible game." Sometimes we can't tell, but it's nice to have our suspicions confirmed. But nobody in Spain cares about style points today, since Andrés Iniesta scored in the final minutes of overtime, breaking a scoreless graceless tie and giving Spain their first ever World Cup win.
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We've seen some surreal sights in our time as Boston sportswatchers. And honestly, we thought "Gagne getting a ring" would never be topped. But there we were last night, watching as Doc Rivers sent two and a half future Hall of Famers to the scorer's table, then called them back to the bench, in crunch time in the Finals, because he didn't want to take Glen Davis, Nate Robinson and Tony Allen off the floor.
An OT loss to the Flyers. A blowout by the Yankees. A blowout by the Cavs. A Revolution loss at Columbus. Another blowout by the Yankees. This was shaping up to possibly be the worst weekend in Boston history, and that's not even counting the Red Line.
What a day. So much to talk about! And that's not even counting the Red Sox, who managed to lose both Friday night's game and Saturday night's game on the same evening, and are counting their lucky stars that the Orioles are lodged in the cellar to break their fall. And that there are two interesting playoff runs developing to distract us all.
"This is where we eat. This is where we set our table." So says Paul Pierce about the comparative struggles the Celtics have had at home lately - struggles that were forgotten last night as the C's ripped off one of their most satisfying wins of the year, a 113-99 dismantling of a very good Denver team.
The good news? The toughest three-game stretch of the season is over...three games against three legit contenders (yes, Atlanta, we hear you). The bad news? The Celtics fell short in all three. We won't see three games in a row like this until the playoffs, but the way things are going right now, how long do we really think the playoffs might last?
Doc Rivers had a Kafkaesque afternoon, but his Celtics rewarded him with one of the comfiest victories he'll ever have. Let's start with the game.
Tracking the Bruins this season has been harder than tracking Santa on satellite (they really do that now). There were the first six weeks of one-down-one-up, then a couple of great weeks, then a rough patch. Now, though, that rough patch is over, and the B's have put together two straight wins, including last night's offensive explosion and 6-4 win over Atlanta.
It wasn't pretty. But an unpretty win is better then an unpretty loss, especially when (for a few days at least) we can relax knowing that Randy Moss is still willing and able to be a functioning member of the New England Patriots.
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.
Even with all the awesomeness that was the Celtics' 2007-08 season - the championship, the 66 wins, the beating every team in the league, the blowout of the Lakers - they never managed to win eleven in a row. This season, however, is barely a month old and the C's have already done that. They earned #11 by beating Portland, 93-78, in a game that featured more drama than the final score would indicate.
Maybe the Celtics took a page from the Bruins, who fell way behind Buffalo and then blew them out on Wednesday. Maybe KG was rusty after missing a game. Whatever happened, the C's dug themselves a quick 13-2 hole, then spent the rest of the night pounding a ragged-looking Detroit team for a 98-80 win that (as they say) wasn't nearly that close.
These injury-rattled 2008 Patriots may have finally settled on an identity. And it's not one that's going to please the kind of people who are only pleased by blowouts and offensive explosions. But football purists and fans of efficiency have to be pleased by the Pats' 20-10 win over Buffalo. It was a masterpiece of clock management, a triumph of minimalism.
Paul Pierce has been here through it all. He slipped to #10 in the draft, becoming such an obvious pick that even Rick Pitino couldn't screw it up. He survived a stabbing. He and Antoine Walker mad-bombed their way into an improbable Eastern Finals appearance. He played through the agony and misery of the dismal mid-00's, always giving it all, always wearing his heart on his sleeve, always waiting for the day to come when all the pain would be worth it.
Reporting on the Red Sox these days is starting to feel like reporting the weather (80s, humid, thunderstorms, and anyway, what happened to "if you don't like the weather in New England, wait five minutes"? Three months of continued 40 and windy, five nice days, and now two months of continued hot and sticky. I'm Andy Rooney, and this is 60 Minutes.)
We guess if they'd come into the league as just the Rays (no Devil), they'd probably be working on their sixth pennant this year. But better late then never for Tampa Bay, who extended their AL East lead by dispatching the Red Sox, 5-4, in front of probably the largest assemblage of Rays fans ever.
Last night was one of the strangest games we've seen in a while at the TDBG. With the unremarkable Clippers in town, the second quarter had a playoff-like intensity to it, with technicals, an ejection, and some really scrappy play. The fourth quarter showed a surprising lineup, as Doc left the second unit (House, Powe, Davis, Posey, Tony Allen) in for almost the entire time. Most surprising of all - the bench played some fantastic defense and better-than-expected offense to close the Clips out.
All right, we get it. Now we know that even if we check the Celtics score and see that they're up 14 on the Wizards with six minutes to go, we can't just take that for granted, switch back to the Lost Season 3 DVD and go to bed untroubled. We have to check again and make sure they sealed the deal.
There's lots of ways to look at it. After 32 good games, we were due for a stinker. Every NBA team is competent and capable of winning any game (well, the Knicks, but you know what we mean). We had serious letdown potential after the Detroit high. Ray Allen and Big Baby were in street clothes.
More than any other game this season, last night's Celtics game resembled an episode of Full House. There were a lot of laughs at the beginning, some serious moments towards the end, but it all wrapped up very neatly, complete with an "awwww" track from the studio audience.
Hey, wasn't this West Coast trip supposed to demonstrate that the Celtics weren't quite as good as everybody thought?
You know the old saying: you can't win 'em all. There are some gentlemen in Foxboro who may disagree, but the theory holds up for the most part. Which the Celtics and their eager fans learned last night at the Garden, as the battle-tested Pistons came in and outlasted the C's for the first home loss of the season.
We're the most starry-eyed, green-Kool-Aid-guzzling optimists anywhere, but even we never thought it would be this good, this fast. Even on a night when two-thirds of Ghidorah wasn't quite up to snuff (Ray Allen 4-for-14, Kevin Garnett missing his usual double-double), the Celtics still had enough to put the clamps on Jersey and win their seventh straight. Any time you defensively hold a team to 69 points and 33% shooting, you're doing something right. And...
This should come as no surprise - Sebastian Telfair has been given the heave by the Celtics organization after getting arrested on another gun charge in Yonkers.
-- Who would have thought the Red Sox would be happy to leave Fenway? And after a series with Toronto, no less? The orange of Camden Yards will seem heavenly after a groaner of a loss at Fenway Park on Tuesday night. The Jays knocked around the Sox, 10-3, in front of the largest crowd at Fenway since World War II. Ouch. As the Globe's Nick Cardafo summed up post-game, it was awful. True, the...
We say "World's Fastest" because the Patriots vs. Chargers game has already started. People have their Pats gear on, their brews out, and their munchies on the coffee table. Most likely, they aren't reading Bostonist. Heck, this Bostonist has one eye on the telly and the other on the computer screen.
Celtics 86, Raptors 95. With six men out with injuries, including the latest casualty Tony Allen, the Celtics hardly had the manpower to overcome a team in good health. The game started sloppy and it wasn’t until the second half that the crowd got into the game when. The Celtics were able to take control of the scoreboard by a few points here and there, but the night was a game of catch-up for the home team before ultimately coming up 9 points short. Young, rookie players took to the parquet and managed to hold their own for much of the game – perhaps it will help to give greater depth when those injured return to the court. How’s that for optimism?
Bruins 4, NY Islanders 5 - The Islanders won in a shootout. Bostonist knows it's not the guy's fault, but it's pretty funny that the Islanders have a player whose last name is Satan. There's nothing like scanning the morning headlines and seeing the words "Satan scored …" underneath last night's hockey news.
Celtics, 84 vs. Indiana Pacers, 97 – Perhaps the play was less "selfish," but the outcome wasn't any better when the Celtics were up against Jermaine O'Neal and Jamaal Tinsley. And Tony Allen, the go-to-guy of the moment, got hurt. This means everyone got hurt. Doc Rivers is even more down in the mouth: "This is just terrible. Tony (Allen) is probably an ACL. Tony's injury really hurt us, obviously. Not just because of his...