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Sean Grande

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From the Booth Archive

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From the Booth
By Sean Grande
Special to Celtics.com
March 31, 2008

I know it was mean, but come on, how many chances like this are you going to get?

The Miami Heat are two years removed from a championship and a year removed from crowing about it, and flaunting it under the prime-time national spotlight only enjoyed by the precious few NBA elite. Those Heat, show up at the Garden to play the Celtics, here and now the NBA's best team, on the exact same day the Harlem Globetrotters play the Washington Generals/Nationals.

And I'm not supposed to make jokes about that?

That's like asking a dog to not eat the pork chop you accidentally dropped on the floor.

That's like asking Dick Vitale to sit in a silent Quaker meeting house for an hour after the brackets come out.

It's like telling Eddie House that he can't shoot in the fourth quarter of a blowout game.

It's cruel, unfair, and it's just not going happen.

There has never been a more painstaking rise to NBA Title glory than the two-decade odyssey of the Miami Heat. The slow, incremental climb from Ronny Seiklay expansion team, to the Harold Miner growing pains, to the Alonzo Mourning near-miss years, when their reach for the title wasn't nearly as strong as Jeff Van Gundy's death grip on Zo's ankle.

Then, the mountain top. Shaq, D-Wade, Antoine, J-Will and James Posey all holding the trophy.

Less than two years later, there's never been a more precipitous fall from glory.

It's redefined penthouse to outhouse.

Britney Spears didn't fall that fast.

Elliott Spitzer did, but his payroll wasn't nearly as high. Close, but not quite.

The greatest one-hit wonders are all gathered marveling at the crash. Shelley Long, Joe Millionaire and Vanilla Ice are all doing the Macarena to commemorate it.

The Heat are the fool who Mr. T pities.

And as they took the floor Sunday at the Garden, like the final week of a Broadway show, understudies dotting the roster ("at this performance, the role of Dwayne Wade will be played by Blake Ahearn, etc."), they look across the floor at the team that replaced them as the league's standard.

Two years ago, Antoine Walker walked into the building offering playoff tickets to his former team. Sunday, Miami fielded a team of guys who likely will be buying tickets in the not too distant future.

The notion of reversals of fortune are almost as old as literature itself. But we won't be talking about King Lear, Joseph and the Pharaoh. And Cinderella's a bit overused this time of year.

To me, there's only one literary reference best suited for this improbable last-season clash. Only two characters that best personify this historic role reversal.

Louis Winthorpe and Billy Ray Valentine.

Because no two NBA teams have ever traded places like this.

Think about it, for the last two years, the Miami Heat, like Winthorpe, have been the fat cats. Living large off the rest of the league, high payroll, national TV, deep runs through the playoffs. Meanwhile, the charming, street-wise Billy Ray has been forced to try and survive with all the slings and arrows of outrageous basketball fortune. In this case, the NBA's most storied franchise was quite clearly a victim of environment, not heredity.

And it's as if the puppet masters (represented in the film by the villainous, avaricious Duke brothers) are playing out a bet to see if they can take one team from the lottery and make them title contenders, while returning the other from 1st to 30th at the same time.

In the movie, they take away Winthorpe's house (Shaq traded to Phoenix), his car (Dwayne Wade), freeze his bank accounts (way over the salary cap) and leave him without any way to help himself (injuries to Jason Williams, Shawn Marion, Udonis Haslem and Dorrell Wright). They do it to see if he can survive.

Meanwhile, with Billy Ray having been arrested on a trumped up charge and facing years, it seems, in jail (draft lottery night), they change his life as well. And bestowed upon him are the big house (Kevin Garnett), the fancy car (Ray Allen). Even Winthorpe's most loyal guy, the unflappable Coleman, who'd do all the dirty work, anything that needed to get done without complaint, simply for the sake of being a pro...ends up with Billy Ray (James Posey). They go it to see if he thrives.

As it turns out, he had his own special abilities all along (Paul Pierce). And the captain never complained publicly, never made trade demands on someone's cell phone camera at a mall. He just did his job. Because pros, like karate men, bruise on the inside.

And how goes the experiment?

Forty-two games over .500. A sweep of the Texas Triangle. Wins over every other team in the NBA. The first double-digit scoring differential season since the Jordan Bulls. Twenty wins by twenty or more.

While the erstwhile champion Heat are just hoping to win twenty, period.

Talk about copyright infringement. That's Trading Places.

So as the Celtics make the turn for home...the finish line of the one of the best NBA regular seasons in the last quarter-century, there's really only one thing you can say.

Looking good, Billy Ray.

Looking good.

For the Geek Side of Your Brain

One of the best parts of this magic carpet ride of a winter has been, in addition to the quality of the play and the quality of the wins, have been the quality of the numbers for this particular section. I mean, four years ago when I was doing this column, I'd have things like "Did you know Eric Williams is leading the NBA in free throw attempts per minute?" Now we're in a whole new stratosphere.

There are plenty of ways to determine, mathetmatically and statistically, that the Celtics have been the best team in the league this year...by far. As if the eye test wasn't enough.

These are two of my favorites...

FEWEST LOSSES BY MORE THAN 5 POINTS - NBA 2007-2008

(Through March 30)

BOSTON - 6
SAN ANTONIO - 14
LA LAKERS - 15
DETROIT - 15
PHOENIX - 15
DALLAS - 18
HOUSTON - 18
ORLANDO - 18
NEW ORLEANS - 19

FEWEST DOUBLE-DIGIT LOSSES - NBA 2007-2008

(Through March 30)

BOSTON - 2
PHOENIX - 8
SAN ANTONIO - 8
DETROIT - 9
DALLAS - 10
HOUSTON - 10
LA LAKERS - 10
NEW ORLEANS - 13


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