
Well, it’s been thirty-seven days since Daniel X. Shaughnessy wrote something about the Boston Celtics. A lot’s happened since then. The winds have changed. The tides have risen & fallen. America is a new & better place. Bob Ryan’s face exploded.
Never mind the playoff race. Never mind the Marbury signing. Never mind the Garnett injury. Dan Shaughnessy has more important things to write about. Like high school basketball, JUCO basketball, college basketball & A-Rod.
Seriously.
JUCO basketball.
Anyway, he’s back. I thought I’d killed him, but he’s rising out of the fire like a phoenix. A phoenix who makes horrible Bill Buckner references.
Let’s kill him again..
(Shaughnessy’s douchebag supremacy in bold, my white supremacy in plain.)
Hottest of the Heat
Ooh, definitely Jamaal Magloire. He’s got a sweet ass.
There were days, not long ago, when the only reason to watch the Celtics was to see one of the big stars playing for the visiting team.
I wonder if Dan just brings up various negative things in his normal everyday life.
“Son, great job getting into Harvard; but remember that time you vomited in the Oldsmobile? That was a very bad day..”
“Honey, that sex was amazing but how about the time you got that DUI?”
“Bob, thanks for lunch; it was delicious. But remember the time your face exploded?”
The Celtics couldn’t sell their own product,
They couldn’t sell Celtic-brand dental dams? I find that hard to believe..
so they tried to pull you in with the likes of Shaq or Kobe or Allen Iverson.
Someone pulled me into an unmarked van with the likes of those guys once..
Now you go to watch the home team. And it’s OK if the Green are playing some anonymous Bucks or Grizzlies.
How do you know they’re the Bucks if they’re anonymous? CONUNDRUM!
Tonight you get both.
Anonymity & dental dams?
You get to see the defending champs and you get to see the league’s leading scorer: Dwyane Wade.
Dwyane should change his middle name to [sic].
Wade is a singular sensation.
Isn’t that a Four Tops song?
He is leading the NBA with a 29.9-point average, he has taken his team from a 15-win season to the middle of the playoff pack in NBA East,
Which has no affiliation to CTU West.
and he has injected himself into the 2008-09 MVP debate
Ew, literally?
- no small achievement in a league dedicated to the feats of LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.
I call him Lebron. We’re on a first-name, lower-case-B basis.
King James and Crybaby Kobe
LOL! Kobe’s a poopy-head!
are always going to get their props,
Especially if they’re contestants on Who’s Line Is It Anyway?
but D-Wade has made himself impossible to ignore.
Because he literally injected himself into the MVP debate.
Every time you flip on ESPN, there is Wade flying through the air, legs cycling,
As long as they remain “cycling” and not “akimbo”.
throwing in an overtime buzzer-beater. He dropped 50 points on the heads of the Utah Jazz in a triple-overtime win.
Wayyyy past Mormon curfew.
And there was that spectacular running three that beat Chicago at the buzzer in double OT.
“It’s no secret that we feel he’s playing at the best level of anybody in the league right now,” said Miami coach Erik Spoelstra (pass Go and collect $200 if you knew that this young man is coach of the Heat).
I didn’t, because I don’t follow the NBA. I’m too busy writing about the JUCO leagues.
JUCO! Be there!
“We feel that what he’s been doing for us, impacting games
And colons.
in close fourth quarters and overtimes - he’s helped win games for us in those situations at both ends of the floor.
So your best player affects whether you win games or not? Thanks Coach.
Blocks, steals, loose balls,
Ha..
and obviously scoring. We feel like he’s been doing that more than anybody else in the league.”
Which is probably why he leads the league in scoring. Is Erik Spoelstra unaware of statistics? Somebody should tell him.
Wade is humble about the MVP argument. Only 27, he has been around for five seasons and he has already won an NBA title and Olympic gold.
And STD’s and an ad campaign with Charles Barkley. Mission accomplished.
“I’ve been talked on a lot with LeBron and Kobe lately, and it’s great to hear,” he said after a midday practice at Emerson College yesterday.
NERDS!
“The whole MVP thing, for me to be in the conversation after what I went through last year [coming back from shoulder and knee surgeries], is gratifying.
Sexually gratifying.
“MVP talk comes with success. We’ve got a good team and I want the team to be in the race, so I’ve got a bigger burden on my hands than the other two to stay in that race. Those guys are on 50-plus-win teams. We’re still trying to fight for position in the playoffs, so I’ve got to do a little bit more to go to stay in that race.”
Wait, which race? The MVP one or the playoff one? Dwyayayane, you’re confusing me!
The Heat have been in Boston since Sunday night.
Four nights in Massachusetts for a Miami native must be like four nights on the Sun for a penguin.
By NBA standards, this makes them eligible to vote in Massachusetts.
Massholes are already pretty bad voters. They don’t need Florida voters helping them out.
Pro basketball teams are often in a city for less than 24 hours.
They come in, they ravish my body and they leave; never to call me again..
Wade & Co. came to the Hub
Don’t call it that..
after a loss in Philadelphia, and Spoelstra gave them the day off Monday. Wade did not walk the Freedom Trail.
Wade does not support freedom.
“It was a rest day, a day to get away from basketball,” he said.
Get away from me, basketball!
He took treatment for his shoulder, knee, and hip. And he watched a lot of “SportsCenter.”
No basketball there..
“I’m an ESPN guy,” he said. “A movie guy. Jacuzzi.
Jacuzzi Guy?
Our strength coach keeps us busy.”
Busy cleaning the jacuzzi.
If he’s hanging around in his hotel room, with “SportsCenter” looping in the background, does his head snap to attention when they cut to the latest D-Wade highlights?
Kinda like how Shaughnessy’s head snaps to attention when they cut to a Buckner highlight?
“Of course you watch it,” he said. “But right now it’s all about March Madness.”
Oh, and the playoff race. That too..
Like Doc Rivers, Wade is a Marquette man. Six years ago this week, Wade was on the Marquette team that beat Holy Cross, 72-68, in the first round of the NCAA tourney.
Wow, how did they handle the 2003 Holy Cross juggernaut?
“We rolled after that,” he remembered. “But besides losing to Kansas [in the national semifinals], that was our toughest game. We got to worry about Utah State right now.
Fear the Aggies. If I knew what an Aggie was, I would fear it.
“Doc always talks to me about the Warriors,
And how they like to come out & play-ee-yay.
but I remind him that I’m a Golden Eagle. He was a Warrior.
(Marquette caved to pressure and switched nicknames in 1994.)
That was a good move, though. Every time I call an Indian a Warrior, they get soooo pissed.
This is Miami’s first trip to Boston this year. One week ago, the Heat beat the undermanned Celtics, 107-99, in Miami.
WE WERE UNDERMANNED, DAMMIT! WE HAD LESS MEN THAN WE NORMALLY DO! AND IT WAS HUMID!!
“It’s going to be rockin’ here,” said Wade.
Yeah, dude! Keep on truckin’!
“We know how we play in front of our home crowd, and this is going to be a very tough atmosphere for us.
Because they are not our home crowd. They are an away crowd.
“We know we won’t see them in the first round, but maybe later in the second round. Something like that.
Kinda sorta maybe.
Hopefully, we stay out of their way for the first round. Hopefully, we stay in that 4-5 range, maybe meet them later.
Or not..
“Last year they had a lot of players on their team that hadn’t won a championship and it seemed like it took them forever to get it.
Those losers. Why didn’t they just have the refs call everything in their favor?
It’s even tougher to repeat.
It’s even tougher to repeat. Hey, no it isn’t!
Something we experienced. When you’re the champions, you’re every team’s big game and they get up for you no matter what. It’s very tough, especially not having all your guns.”
I need ammo!
Wade won his championship with Shaquille O’Neal. Now he’s on the comeback trail with Jermaine O’Neal. Smaller guy. Big difference.
Yeah. One’s good & one sucks.
“He is getting more comfortable in the offense,” said Wade.
In other words, he’s passing it to me more.
“It’s the vision of when he came here, to have that 1-2 punch with the pick-and-roll. Or you throw it into the post and let him work. It’s very tough to defend.
“Kind of pick your poison.
Rat poison! No wait, strychnine!
Blitz me and I have the opportunity to throw it to him
Shit, he thinks he’s a quarterback..
or let me come off for the open jumper. It’s something we envisioned when the trade happened.”
Plans for last night?
Ahh! Past Shaughnessy! We must warn him of his future!!
“I’ve heard good things about St. Patrick’s Day in Boston,” Wade said.
And Cinco de Mayo in Mexico is supposedly quite fun.
“But my plan is to stay out of the way.”
Huh, I thought black people loved the Irish..
Different plan tonight at the Garden.
Yeah, he’s gonna get wasted tonight..
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. 
~~~
Another one bites the dust.
Once again, a Shaughnessy article that’s half-written by others. Oh, and of the three Shaughnessy Celtics posts we’ve done on lowposts so far? One was about Dwyane Wade & one was about Matt Bonner. Does Shaughnessy even live in Boston anymore?
Until we meet again, or until he writes another Celtics article (which might be midway through the Finals); remember, good citizens of Planet Earth: Dan Shaughnessy is a complete & utter douche.