Mixed Bag (NBA Finals Edition)

If you haven't read Curt Schilling's blog post on his observations of watching Kobe Bryant from behind the bench you are missing out. You can not read this and find one comment that is not consistent with his miserable public persona:

From the first tip until about 4 minutes left in the game I saw and heard this guy bitch at his teammates. Every TO he came to the bench pissed, and a few of them he went to other guys and yelled about something they weren’t doing, or something they did wrong. No dialog about “hey let’s go, let’s get after it” or whatever. He spent the better part of 3.5 quarters pissed off and ranting at the non-execution or lack of, of his team. Then when they made what almost was a historic run in the 4th, during a TO, he got down on the floor and basically said ‘Let’s f’ing go, right now, right here” or something to that affect. I am not making this observation in a good or bad way, I have no idea how the guys in the NBA play or do things like this, but I thought it was a fascinating bit of insight for me to watch someone in another sport who is in the position of a team leader and how he interacted with his team and teammates.

**************************************************************************

Speaking of Bryant, who is more hateable Kobe? or Phil Jackson? Tough call. Seriously tough call.

**************************************************************************

The NBA referee problem is no laughing matter. A league that has the worst officiating of any professional sport opens itself to doubts as long as it doesn't have it's house in order. I prefer to give them the Bush Administration benefit of the doubt. Why blame on conspiracy what you can blame on incompetence?

**************************************************************************

When the great cheater Bill Belichik visited the Celtic's locker room earlier in the playoffs he gave Doc Rivers the great advice to never speak about injuries. When you hear about Rondo's ankle or Pierce's knee, be skeptical.

**************************************************************************

Speaking of Rondo, I don't believe anything about his injury unless I hear it from his Blog

**************************************************************************

Lastly, I may have been premature about Celtics in 5. Celtics in 6.

**************************************************************************

UPDATE: Maybe I wasn't premature. GREAT COMEBACK! GREAT WIN!!!!

**************************************************************************

UPDATE II: Doc Rivers just coached the game of his life while the genius Phil Jackson had nothing to counter. Doc get more criticism than praise, but the job he has done both this season and especially this Finals series is one of the great coaching jobs of all time.

**************************************************************************