Tag: Kendrick Perkins

Kendrick Perkins Reveals Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo Legit Threw Hands in 2008

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I live for stories like this about old championship winning teams and the late 2000s Celtics are one of my favorite teams of all time. Just a group of aging veterans/hyper competitive alpha males/future Hall of Famers all chasing their first ring, thrown together with a no bullshit head coach and a capricious young point guard infamous for destroying children in games of Connect Four.

Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen when you say it like that.

Rondo was like the younger brother picking fights with all the biggest guys in the neighborhood, which at times made him more Tommy Devito than John Stockton. So it’s no surprise that Allen, who always seemed to be wanting more credit for the Celtics’ dominance, butted heads with a vocal and at times volatile young Rondo.

Rondo vs Ray was never a well kept secret, but I had no idea they actually, physically came to blows. That’s the kind of shit we did in our high school locker room to blow off some steam or settle a score so I get it, but I’m describing a group of 17-year-olds. This little parquet fight club was taking place when Rondo was 22 and Ray was a fully grown man at 32-years-old!

I can only imagine Doc Rivers and his gravelly voice in the background just reminding everyone about the first (and second) rule of Fight Club, which Perk finally broke all these years later.

This only adds to the legendary stories of just how unhinged that 2008 Celtics team truly was including Kevin Garnett’s arm wrestling dominance:

“KG tops it all off with a classic Garnett moment, screaming I’m the Alpha Male in this bitch. This guy is the most competitive person in the history of the world and I don’t think thats an exaggeration”

Al Horford Says Celtics Weren’t “Going to Be Able to Coexist” With Kyrie Irving

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Boston Herald – As far as on the court, it’s certain Horford wasn’t interested in playing another hand from the same deck. I asked him if his decision would have been different if Irving had remained.

“I’m not sure that has anything to do with it for me,” Horford said. “I just think that if Kyrie would have stayed, I don’t know if it would have worked. There would have had to be some major changes as far as players, because it was just clear that the group that we had just wasn’t going to be able to coexist.”

And what about if he’d known Kemba Walker was coming. Horford paused.

“I don’t want to get caught up in the past,” he said, “but, yeah, that would have been totally different.”

Longtime Celtics writer Steve Bulpett caught up with old friend Al Horford and the big man had some interesting quotes on the dumpster fire that was the Celtics last year.

Horford reaffirmed what everyone has been saying for the past 6 months; this team just could not gel. Whether you want to blame that on Kyrie being a piss poor leader or on the young guys feeling themselves a bit too much is up to you, but the issue was real.

Kyrie is the guy that openly and bizarrely announced to the media that the Celtics needed a “15 year veteran” to help the team win. Maybe a Sam Cassell or Kendrick Perkins type at the end of the bench could have helped play the role of mentor/player-coach, but this group shouldn’t have needed that.

Lets just kill the Kemba/Horford talk right now too because of the way the NBA cap works in all its mysterious ways, it would have bene just about impossible for the Celtics to fit Kemba and Horford on the team. The only reason they were able to sign Kemba was *because* Kyrie and Horford left, not in spite of it. When one guy leaves it doesn’t automatically open up that salary space under the cap. Infuriating, yet true. The cap is not crap in this league.

The Celtic’s early playoff exit and subsequent gutting is all the more frustrating because of just how talented this team truly was last season.

“I just feel like we had so much talent, just a lot of talent, and we all wanted to do great things. There were just too many of us almost. I just feel like we had so much that it was very, very difficult to essentially keep everybody feeling good and focused on where we wanted to get to. And I do believe that that just kept getting in our way.”

You had 3 All-Stars in Kyrie/Horford/Hayward, a defensive POY candidate in Smart, a couple of future All-Stars in Tatum and Brown and a ton of excellent role players. Except Hayward was coming back from his injury and the ONLY way for him to get right was to play, which obviously took minutes away from Tatum and Brown. Sprinkle in the fact that Kyrie seemingly preferred to play with veterans because the young guys just didn’t “get it” or have the winning experience (despite Kyrie having a grand total of one title). Then you had guys like Terry Rozier and Marcus Morris in contract years playing hero ball trying to get paid. Plus you still had former first round picks like Robert Williams and Guerschon Yabusele trying to carve out roles. To top it all off was Brad Stevens who couldn’t get the team to buy in and Danny Ainge who refused to make any changes to the roster. Thats a recipe for a disaster in hindsight.

Appearing on Anna Horford’s podcast (yes, Al’s sister) Cedric Maxwell actually blames the Celtics more than Kyrie.

“I think the Celtics, for the most part, babied Kyrie too much,” Maxwell said. “When you baby a player for so many times and you’re kissing his ass the whole time, I think, for the most part he has no recourse.”

I mean, he’s not wrong, but still Kyrie is a grown ass man. This isn’t like blaming the parents for spoiling a 5 year old kid. Kyrie is a 27-year-old Duke graduate participant with eight seasons in the league.

Goddamnit what a waste of an opportunity. The Warriors were on their last legs, Giannis was a one man show, the Sixers weren’t deep enough, LeBron was broken down and in the West, and the C’s just could not get their shit together to make a run. Kawhi Leonard won the title almost singlehandedly in Toronto and I firmly believe a cohesive Celtics squad could have taken the Raptors. Unfortunately that team never figured it out and here we are.

The Celtics aren’t a favorite, a top 5 or even a top 10 pick to win it all in most polls this year because of the talent that left town. The C’s acted swiftly and made the best of a bad situation by bringing another elite talent in Kemba Walker to town, but now Boston goes back to being a plucky underdog rather than a pre-season juggernaut. Maybe thats for the best.

It Would Seem Kevin Garnett Was the Most Generous Athlete of All Time, According to Perk

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NBC Sports – It seems like there is no shortage of Kevin Garnett stories, especially from his time with the Celtics. I mean, it’s been six years since the Celtics traded him and Paul Pierce to the Nets and every once and a while we hear a new story about how great a teammate or how crazy a competitor he was.

In a preview for Kristine Leahy’s show “Fair Game” on FS1, Perkins told a few tales about the future Hall of Famer’s legendary unselfishness, calling him the most unselfish guy he’s ever been around.

I could listen to stories about the 2007-2012 Celtics all day because that is one of my favorite Boston sports eras of all time. As usual, this is a story coming from Kendrick Perkins who has become my new favorite NBA Insider. Perk in particular brought us the stories of Garnett guarding the buffet line like a Faneuil Hall bouncer and who could forget the “real hood shit” arm wrestling story:

So Perk brings us another story about KG, but this one might just bring a tear to your eye. Despite being a clear psychopath, you could always tell KG had a heart of gold. He was just an absolute psychotic competitor who wanted to win at all costs…

…but after the game was a genuinely good dude. Seems like he was a generous guy too:

Perkins, who played with Garnett in Boston for three-and-a-half seasons, recalled how he did not save his unselfishness just for his play on the court, but for interns, assistants, ball-boys and video coordinators too.

“He would have his tailor come in and he’d buy each one of them five custom suits,” Perkins said.

Of course, Garnett wasn’t perfect. In the interview, Perkins mentioned how players had to wait for him on the team plane because he was getting a long massage, and there are the popular stories of Garnett yelling at anyone who took food from the postgame buffet before the players did. But he seemed to always make up for it and then some.

“The biggest thing was when he bought everybody in the organization Rolex watches. That was over the top,” Perkins said. “I tell him all the time, sometimes it’s okay to be a selfish a little bit because he always put himself last.”

That is absolutely bananas. Granted, Garnett made like $326 Million over the course of his career, but suits and rolexes ain’t cheap man. Say its a moderately priced suit for $300, well 5 of those bad boys is $1,500 and a Rolex starts at like $7,000 so thats nearly $10K he’s dropping PER PERSON. Who knows how many staffers he hooked up with that deluxe baller package.

Kevin Garnett, what a guy.

Could Kendrick Perkins Return to the Celtics as a Coach?

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I first heard this rumor the other morning on 98.5 and I believe CelticsLife was the originator of this theory. With the disaster that was this past Celtics season they are obviously in need of some changes, both on and off the court. What was the one thing the Celtics lacked this year, aside from wins? Grit and Balls. This could all be #fakenews but hear me out for a second.

Would the Celtics consider bringing back Kendrick Perkins as an assistant coach?

Perkins has been extremely critical of the Celtics and their issues, yet all while sounding eerily like an assistant coach on the bench.

Perk has also been making the rounds on TV and radio more recently as he breaks down what he sees as the biggest problems on this Boston team. Hint hint: not a fan of Kyrie playing hero ball.

This sounds like a guy who wants to be on a bench somewhere imparting wisdom to younger players. I mean just look at this article from nearly two years ago about how Perk is “destined” to be a coach.

It makes a ton of sense. There was really no one to tell Kyrie Irving to stop acting like a dickhead because he was surrounded by Horford (quiet, lead by example type), Hayward ($30M bench player), a bunch of young guys, and mild mannered Brad Stevens. On one hand I think its a total crock of shit to say you *need* a coach who has played in the NBA to be successful, but on the other hand perception is reality. If players don’t respect the coach then it doesn’t matter how good of a coach he is. So while Brad may be the best X’s and O’s coach in the league, if Kyrie is tuning him out it doesn’t matter. Well, what if Kendrick Perkins is there to provide that street cred? A guy who played FOURTEEN seasons in the league and is a scary sonofabitch to boot. You think Kyrie, or Tatum, or anyone is going to ignore this guy??

Not to mention, there is suddenly an opening on Brad Stevens’ coaching staff.

Lending more credibility to the rumor is the fact that Perk recently pulled out of the BIG3 League, just a couple of weeks after rosters were officially announced, which I blogged about extensively.

Hmmm. The connection to the C’s is still there with Perk; enough that he actually reached out to Danny Ainge last season about returning as a player for the stretch run, before ultimately retiring. Here’s what I wrote back in November:

I LOVE Perk, but we all saw him last year with Cleveland in a suit. The guy would make a phenomenal coach or more likely a corrections officer, but we all understand his playing days are over…If Kendrick Perkins was born 20 years earlier he might be in the Hall of Fame today. I’m not joking. The guy was straight out of the 1980’s NBA. Bill Laimbeer would have been throwing hands with Perk twice a season. He was just an absolute force in the paint; a real old school bully. And that was exactly what the Celtics needed in 2007. A bodyguard for Rondo, a No. 2 to KG’s crazy, a guy willing to do the dirty work while the Big 3 handled all the scoring. He was the perfect fit for that team and both teammates and fans alike adored him.

So while there has been absolutely zero indication from the Celtics, Danny, Wyc, or even Perk himself about this move actually happening, it’s one that I would be completely on board with. The Celtics have lacked a scary strong veteran voice of leadership in the locker room for a long time and I think Perk could bring some Grit and Balls back to this team.

The BIG3 Just Announced Its Team Rosters and Boy Oh Boy They Are STACKED

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The BIG 3 is returning for its third season this summer and it seems to only be growing as it released their team rosters today and they are STACKED.

Just in case you forgot, we are quite fond of the BIG3 here. We even had Mattes go cover a game in person last year. And that was before they stacked the deck with some big time names.

Top names playing in the BIG3 this year include Kendrick Perkins and Greg Oden on the same team to create maybe the biggest “What if these guys never got hurt” duo in basketball history. The Celtics win 2 out 3 NBA titles, the Trailblazers are still one of the best teams in the league, going to war with KD and whatever team he’s playing for at the time.

Mario Chalmers!

Brian Scalabrine returns of course and should probably have equity in this league if he doesn’t already because the White Mamba puts asses in the seats.

Agent Zero himself Gilbert Arenas joins the BIG3 this season and I could not be more excited. Arenas, before all his gunplay problems, practically invented the 28 foot pull up jumper that is so common today. Where you think Damian Lillard learned that move?

Lamar Odom is returning from the grave/the clutches of the Kardashians to play some ball and you gotta think that guy is happy to just be alive at this point. Good for him.

Mike Bibby, Ricky Davis, and Carlos Boozer just seem like a pretty solid, well built team. Plus, if they get into any scuffles Mike Bibby 2.0 will just start beating people up as all he’s done since retiring is lift anything and everything.

Stephen Jackson and Metta World Peace are teaming up to become the bad boys of the league. Coached by the goddamn oak tree himself Charles Oakley no less. Nobody is messing with that team.

The Power will be a trip down elite bench player memory lane for anyone my age with guys like Corey Maggette, Chris Birdman Andersen, Ryan Gomes(!) and Glen Big Baby Davis who somehow avoided going to federal pound me in the ass prison after a drug arrest.

Jason Terry is also playing this year, which raises the question is Jason Terry finally retired orrrr

Nearly spit my drink out when I saw Terry pulling up for 3 in a game for Milwaukee last season.

Former Celtics draft picks Joe Johnson and Big Al Jefferson will be joining forces to be the favorite team of any Celtics fan over the age of 30.

To round it all out we have Jermaine O’Neal, Amar’e Stoudemire and Nate Robinson, but I have to say it is an absolute crime that Ice Cube doesn’t have Nate Robinson and Glen Davis on the same team. Does he not remember the days of Shrek and Donkey??

They even got legit AF names coaching as well with Gary Payton, Rick Barry, Rick Mahorn, Charles Oakley, Kenyon Martin, Lisa Leslie, and Dr. freaking J just to name a few.

How about the BIG3 being the only new sports league to not only avoid going out of business, yet actually thrive? The AAF went out of business before I even needed to refill my car’s tank of gas, the XFL is looking to improve upon its high score of 1 season completed, meanwhile the BIG3 is just adding teams and big time names left and right.

Maybe we’ll send Mattes back out to another BIG3 game this year with a real mic so he can actually get Scal namedropping The 300s Podcast on tape.

Should the Celtics Bring Back Kendrick Perkins? Time for a Hit of Nostalgia!

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So apparently Kendrick Perkins called Danny Ainge just to check in and see if the Celtics had any interest in signing him. Imagine that? Just call up a company that you want to work for and ask hey do you want to pay me? No resumes, no interviews, just straight cash homie.

Normally I would sigh at the thought of a beloved, yet aging Boston athlete looking for one more shot at glory. I LOVE Perk, but we all saw him last year with Cleveland in a suit. The guy would make a phenomenal coach or more likely a corrections officer, but we all understand his playing days are over.

Except my 14-year-old brother was asking me about Perk wondering when was he really good, what he did well, and it dawned on me. 1.) How fucking old I really am and 2.) It’s easy to forget just how great Perk was for the Celtics back in the day. So lets dive in.

If Kendrick Perkins was born 20 years earlier he might be in the Hall of Fame today. I’m not joking. The guy was straight out of the 1980’s NBA. Bill Laimbeer would have been throwing hands with Perk twice a season. He was just an absolute force in the paint; a real old school bully. And that was exactly what the Celtics needed in 2007. A bodyguard for Rondo, a No. 2 to KG’s crazy, a guy willing to do the dirty work while the Big 3 handled all the scoring. He was the perfect fit for that team and both teammates and fans alike adored him.

I mean just look at this clip from the recent Celtics documentary that aired on NBC Sports Boston.

Never change, Perk.

Except Perk was actually born in 1984 and is really still only 34-years-old. Think about that for a second. He is literally just 40 days older than LeBron James. He’s 6 months younger than Carmelo Anthony. He’s two years younger than Dwyane Wade.

But, the sad fact is that the NBA game just passed Perk by. It passed a lot of guys by as the evolution of the game exploded so fast that the old school big man became a dinosaur in less than five years.

Perk’s last season with the Celtics was 2010-11 when Danny Ainge traded him to the OKC Thunder for Jeff goddamn Green in a move that I will still argue cost the C’s a legitimate shot at the title that year. I think if you got a couple warm milks in him, Danny would likely agree. But less than 5 years later the Golden State Warriors kicked off potentially the greatest dynasty we’ve ever seen built entirely on three point shooters, including the big men.

If you’re a big man who can’t shoot in 2018 you almost certainly are in the unemployment line these days. The Celtics have, and actively encourage, Aron Baynes to jack up multiple 3’s per game for fucks sake (averaging 6x 3PA per game than his previous career high last year). That was never Perk’s game so as the NBA turned into a video game with everyone pulling up from half court his role diminished a lot faster than anyone ever expected.

Did you know Kendrick Perkins has never made a 3 pointer in the NBA? Hell he’s only taken 14 attempts in 14 seasons!

To put that into context, from Perk’s last year with the C’s in 2010-11 the average 3 point attempts per game around the league have nearly doubled from 18 attempts per game to 31.3 per game this season. In the previous 8 seasons before that, average 3 point attempts per game had only increased about three from a low of 14.7 in 2002-03. So no one could have predicted the game completely changing the way it has.

As every Celtics fan my age will tell you, the C’s *never* lost a playoff series when their championship starting 5 was healthy and playing together. Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Rajon Rondo, and Kendrick Perkins. Never. Lost. A. Series. Incredible. If Perk doesn’t blow out his knee in the 2009-10 NBA Finals there isn’t a doubt in my mind the Celtics beat the Lakers and win their second title in three years cementing their legacy as one of the greatest teams of all time. Instead we’re left with one championship and a bunch of what ifs, but goddamnit I don’t want to go down this dark road again because I could blog 10,000 words about the 2007-2011 Celtics.

So it sounds like despite all the great times they had together in green, Danny is gonna pass on the former big man.

Former High School Phenom and Celtics Player Sebastian Telfair is Dropping an Album

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Former high school phenom and street ball legend Sebastian Telfair was on the Breakfast Club this morning and I was wondering why he was on the radio regailing tales of his NBA heyday. Apparently he’s dropping an album, which I’ll get to in a bit, but first I have to dive back into my long dormant obsession of one Sebastian Telfair. On the Breakfast Club Telfair even briefly touched on his time with the Boston Celtics. I’m paraphrasing here, but basically what he said was:

“Even the young guys was acting like old guys, like if that guy drives a Cadillac instead of a Bentley I’m not setting a screen for him.”

Telfair played on the worst Celtics team of my life as a fan: the 2006-07 squad that went 24-58 under Doc Rivers. Woof. That was the year Paul Pierce missed a bunch of time due to a foot injury and only appeared in 47 games. What I totally forgot though was just how young Telfair was when he joined the Celtics. In case you were wondering he averaged 6.1 points and 2.8 assists per game in his one year with the C’s. He was still only 21-years-old though and it was just his third year in the league! So its not like he was this total project of a player, which probably helped his value as he was later part of the earth shattering Kevin Garnett trade package just a few months later.

Now who was it that Telfair could be referring to? That Celtics team had a TON of young guys that were on a terrible team so I can imagine how toxic that environment was. Lets take a look at the young guys on that team. Since it was Telfair’s third year in the league, lets take a look at guys who had three years or less of NBA experience when he joined the team. Tony Allen, Ryan Gomes, Gerald Green, Al Jefferson, Kevinn Pinkney (?), Leon Powe, Allan Ray (not Ray Allen), Rajon Rondo, and Delonte West. Holy shit what a cast of characters. I don’t remember the last time I actually looked at the 2006-07 roster (why would anyone?), but I forgot how many “mercurial” players were on that team. I can totally picture Delonte West and Rajon Rondo hating on Telfair for no other reason than the publicity and fanfare he got for being good in high school. And thats before we even get to Kendrick Perkins, who is a favorite player of many Celtics fans, but is also known for being a complete prick too. My money is on Rondo and Perkins just icing Telfair out and straight up bullying him like Mean Girls.

Now it’s probably because I saw Telfair’s documentary Through the Fire when I was like 16 that I have such an affinity for the one time superstar in waiting.

Plus a closing credits song that bangs so hard its on my iPod (iPhone?) to this day.

He was one of the first high school basketball players to go straight to the pros not named Kobe, Garnett or LeBron. Jay-Z even spit a verse about the fucking guy on Dead Presidents.

Let me live out my dreams, until my heart give out
Devour cream, you know exactly what this is about
Fuck y’all mean, handlin’ since a teen
Like LeBron or Sebastian, high school graduates
Straight to the league, I ain’t waitin’ for my knee to blow
Yesterday I was needin’ this dough

Telfair was on the cover of magazines,

His high school games were on ESPN, he had the aforementioned documentary, HOV and Derek Jeter even went to watch him play. In a high school gym.

This was the real life Jesus Shuttlesworth as we all watched a 17-year-old kid decide what he wanted to do with his life. He ultimately ended up spurning the honorable Rick Pitino at Louisville to turn pro instead, going 13th overall to the Trailblazers.

After parts of 11 seasons in the NBA where he averaged 7.4 points and 3.5 rebounds over his career, Telfair went over to China just like his cousin Stephon Marbury and not surprisingly lit it up for a couple years. Now? Now we get mixtape Sebastian as Telfair is apparently dropping an album. Athletes releasing music almost always ends poorly, unless you’re Cole Beasley of course.

But we’ve buried the lede long enough. All athletes want to be rappers and all rappers want to be athletes, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t gonna give Sebastian Telfair’s debut album a listen. I literally could not find any mention of it on the internet though, which is not a great sign. But I was able to track it down after I finally landed on Telfair’s own Twitter page. So without further ado…

The Top 5 Moments from the 2008 Boston Celtics Documentary, Anything is Possible

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If you’d rather listen to The 300s than read it, just subscribe to The 300s Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, RadioPublic, or Anchor!

NBC Sports Boston has been teasing a documentary called Anything is Possible about the 2008 Boston Celtics and their championship season for months so I was pretty fired up for this 2 hour bonanza.

It was written and produced by Jim Aberdale and features interviews with players from the team including Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo, Glen “Big Baby” Davis, Leon Powe, James Posey, Brian Scalabrine, PJ Brown, Sam Cassell, assistant coach Tom Thibodeau, and of course head coach Doc Rivers.

Thats aaaaalmost the entire roster, with two faces noticeably missing.

Unsurprisingly Ray Allen declined to be interviewed for this documentary, which was to be expected considering all his public drama with his former teammates. I was surprised however to see that Kevin Garnett declined to be interviewed for the doc as well. Theres more than enough clips over the years of KG to piece together some great interviews, but it would have been great to hear his take on everything today. I know he has plenty of tv work of his own with KG’s Area 21, but I can only assume he just wanted to avoid anymore questions about Ray Allen.

With all that being said, lets get into the Top 5 Moments from Anything is Possible:

1. The Kevin Garnett Arm Wrestling Story

Every Celtics fan knows how tapped Kevin Garnett is and how he would do almost anything to win. It turns out that isn’t reserved for just basketball. The team plane was full of competition whether it was dice, cards, or in this case arm wrestling and to hear Kendrick Perkins set the scene is a laugh out loud moment..

KG was challenging the entire team and even ended up beating Big Baby by sheer force of will, which is impressive considering Big Baby is listed at 289 pounds. Doc Rivers even called it the most athletic thing hes ever seen. KG tops it all off with a classic Garnett moment, screaming I’m the Alpha Male in this bitch. This guy is the most competitive person in the history of the world and I don’t think thats an exaggeration

2. Paul Pierce Recruiting PJ Brown on the Streets of New Orleans

A key role player on the 2008 Celtics, PJ Brown tells the story of how he came out of retirement to play for the C’s. Brown describes walking down the streets of New Orleans during All Star weekend and Paul Pierce’s car happens to spot him, pull up, and roll down the window. Pierce, having had a few cocktails gushes to Brown how the C’s could use him, but PJ writes it off as Paul just having a good time. Then Ray Allen sees Brown the next day and reiterates the Celtics interest in him joining the team. Pierce brings it up to Danny Ainge who signs Brown almost immediately

3. Big Baby Davis Being High as a Kite

Big Baby is clearly enjoying his time reminiscing over the 2008 Celtics and it is a sight to watch.

4. Kendrick Perkins’ Reaction to the Celtics Getting Ray Allen

Perk is the highlight of the entire documentary, especially this line describing his reaction to one of the biggest Celtics moves before the 08 season, saying

“I didn’t know what to think when we got Ray Allen, I just knew we got Jesus Shuttlesworth.” – Kendrick Perkins

5. Doc Rivers Response to Phil Jackson Mispronouncing Leon Powe’s Name

After a big game by Powe in the NBA Finals Phil Jackson complained in his press conference that Leon POW got more free throws than anyone on the Lakers. Michael Holley points out that if your getting in the zen masters head, you know you had the Lakers on the rope. Powe himself laughed it off saying he knew it was mind games by the LA coach, but the best reaction was from Celtics coach Doc Rivers: “I told our coaches I wanted to beat his ass.”

Thats it, the Top 5 moments from the Anything is Possible documentary, but don’t take my word for it. Go watch it right now, because that is two hours well worth your time.

https://anchor.fm/the300s/embed

Paul Pierce Says the Celtics Would Have Won 70 Games With a Healthy KG in 2009

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CelticsWire – One of the great questions about the KG-Paul Pierce-Ray Allen Big Three era is what would’ve happened if they weren’t beset by injuries. They were the league’s hottest team in 2009 after winning the title, before Kevin Garnett went down with a leg injury. In 2010, they made it to Game 7 of the NBA Finals against the Lakers, but lost without Kendrick Perkins who suffered a torn ACL in Game 6. They were hot again the next season before Shaq’s career came to an early end due to lingering calf injuries, falling to the Heat in five games in the conference semis.

I mean, he’s not wrong. The Celtics were absolutely dominant right out of the gate in 2007 on the way to a 66-16 record and the Larry O’Brien trophy. Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen had played a grand total of 0 games together before rolling to a 20-2 start. That is insane. KG was Defensive Player of the Year, Paul Pierce was NBA Finals MVP, and Danny Ainge was Executive of the Year.

All of that was in Year 1. Imagine how good they would have been in Year 2 with a fully healthy team?

“I say it all the time, I thought we could have three-peated,” Pierce said. “Because if you look, we won I think 62 games the second year after we won it. Kevin got hurt after 30 games, so we played 40 games and the playoffs without Kevin and still won 60 games. I believe we were somewhere around 29-2. Everybody was talking about us winning 70.

“If Kevin was healthy, we probably would have won 70 games. 2010 we coasted. We only won 50 games and when the playoffs come, we turned it up and got to the Finals.”

One of the most dominant teams of the century was rounding into form in Year 2 with 3 hungry Hall of Famers before a KG injury shot that all to hell. In more recent interviews you hear about how Garnett was never really the same again after that injury. Sure they made the Finals the following year when he came back, but after 2010 they became the old, wily veterans just getting by on grit and balls. That narrative produced my favorite Celtics commercial of all-time by the way.

But the days of winning 70 games and NBA titles had passed.

Something I say all the time when people chirp Boston fans is that you will never care about your teams more than we do. Even after all the winning. Boston has had an incredible run of success going back to 2001 with all 4 major teams, BUT we also have experienced some of the most heartbreaking losses, which only helps to fuel that fire. I won’t list them all here because I don’t want to smash my laptop at work, but the 2010 NBA Finals Game  7 will forever have a spot on that list. Going for their second title in three years against the Lakers in LA. Perk had blown out his knee the game before and the Celtics were relying on bum ass Rasheed Wallace who was sucking air from the tip. It was a slow bleed too. You could feel the game slipping away and the Celtics just couldn’t put it away.

The Big Three Celtics will be forever remembered as the ones that raised Banner 17 and how they completely changed the culture of the Celtics. We’ll always say what if though. What if KG was healthy, what if Danny didn’t trade Perk for Jeff Fucking Green, what if LeBron didn’t go Super Saiyan and drop 45 and 15 on us in Game 6.

Now I need to cheer myself up, so enjoy this trip down memory lane.

Celtics Officially Re-Sign Paul Pierce So He Can Retire With the Green

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You know its the little things in life that bring me the most joy. The Boston Celtics bringing back Paul Pierce on a one day contract to officially retire in green is one of those things.

Paul Pierce was the greatest Celtic of my lifetime for sure. I was too young to watch Larry Bird and those great 80s Celtics teams. So I grew up with those early 00s Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker teams. Pierce was the first guy in my life to get drafted, developed, become an elite NBA player and win a championship. He was the NBA Finals MVP the year they won and he’s gonna have his number in the rafters before too long. If Kendrick Perkins doesn’t get hurt in 2010 or Rasheed Wallace isn’t a complete bum, Pierce has two rings in three years with the C’s. He was competitive – routinely going head to head with LeBron in the playoffs. But above all, he was clutch. This was the guy you wanted with the ball in his hands with the clock winding down. Get Paul the ball, isolate and let him go to work. Didn’t matter who was guarding him, take him to the elbow, give him the Pierce lean to draw the contact or pull up and drain it. I had this Pierce game winner in LeBron’s eyeball as my background for a LONG time.

Pierce was also a part of one of my favorite Boston teams of all time, the 2011 team that lost to the Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals. They only won 39 games that year and finished as the No. 4 seed, but it was the ultimate Grit and Balls team. The Big 3 was an old group of aging vets and this team was on its last legs. They had LeBron and the Heat on the ropes, who needed an otherworldly performance from LeBron to hold them off and ultimately knock the C’s out in 7. But that team was fun as hell to watch, getting by on effort, execution and just straight up balls. Sure they didn’t win the title that year, but they did spawn the best NBA playoffs commercial ever.

To sum it up, Pierce was the one constant for the Celtics over the years. He has the 2nd most points in franchise history with 24,021. He was there as a kid, he was there when the team was BAD, winning less than 30 games, the guy nearly died in Boston after getting stabbed for christ’s sake. He was there for the KG and Ray Allen team up. He was there to hoist the first Larry O’Brien trophy for Boston in 20+ years. Kevin Garnett changed the culture in Boston and they don’t win the title without Ray Allen, but Paul Pierce WAS the Celtics. The guy bled green for 15 years so it’s awesome to see him retire with the Boston Celtics.

HIT THE TRUTH HIGHLIGHTS!