Tag: KG

The 2012 Celtics Were THIS Close to Breaking Up the Miami Heat According to LeBron James

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NBCSports – LeBron James joined Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami promising multiple championships. But the Heat lost in the 2011 NBA Finals then lost three straight to trail the Celtics 3-2 in the 2012 Eastern Conference finals. LeBron was labeled a choker who didn’t deliver in the clutch.

Then, he turned in a performance for the ages – 45 points, 15 rebounds and five assists in a victory in Boston.

How did LeBron summon that level of focus and execution?

LeBron on Instagram Live:

My mentality was, if we lose, Pat Riley may break us all up. And I didn’t want that. It might be the quickest breakup in basketball history. And not only might they break it all up, my legacy is going to take a huge, huge hit if I don’t go out here and perform at an all-time high. Win, lose or draw, I had to be focused. I had to lock in and lead us to victory. Didn’t know if it was going to happen that way, but that was my mindset.

Despite an unprecedented run of dominance in Boston across multiple sports over the past 20 years, it’s the bitter defeats that stick with me most. I vividly remember sitting at my future father-in-law’s house in 2012 watching LeBron James rip my heart out as he went God Mode for 45 and 15 in Game 6. Just an absolutely unbelievable, singlehanded display of dominance. And it knocked out the already exhausted legs of the aging, proud, veteran laden 2012 Celtics. I’ve written about how that Celtics squads was one of my all-time favorite Boston teams many times.

Led by three Hall of Famers in Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen, but all three were well past their primes. This was a full four years after the Celtics won Banner 17. This wasn’t the 2008 Celtics, this was the Grit and Balls Celtics.

KG was 36, Ray was 36, and Pierce was 34-years-old at this point so this was going to be their last run at a chip and everybody knew it. It’s impressive they even got that far after winning just 39 games in the regular season that year.

People forget the C’s actually went down 0-2 in this series before ripping off 3 straight wins and putting LeBron on the ropes, which was oh so sweet at the time. KG and the Celtics broke LeBron two years before and legitimately bullied him so bad he left Cleveland to team up with his super friends. After the most ridiculous display in pro sports history (AKA the pre-season dynasty predicting rock concert)

LeBron and co. proceeded to get worked by Dirk and the Mavs in the 2011 Finals.

0 for 1.

So if the Heat lost yet again in Year 2, with LeBron, D-Wade, and Chris Bosh all on massive contracts, I very easily could have seen Pat Riley saying F this whole operation. Would that have been an overreaction? Yea sure, but this is Pat Riley we’re talking about not Brad Stevens.

To think we were THIS close to imploding that mini-dynasty less than 24 months into its inception like a cheap folding chair. That Game 6 literally gave birth to the LeBron James we know today. It essentially washed away the choker tag as LeBron evolved into the most dominant player in the world that night.

Yes, LeBron swung the sword that decapitated the end of the Celtics’ run and won his first NBA title in the process. But lets not forget the following season, if not for Ray Allen’s dagger 3 in Game 6 of the Finals the Heat lose to the Spurs in 2012.

I remember watching this game at T’s Pub on that crappy projector screen, turning to Big Z and saying “Well Ray just won the Finals for LeBron.” They still had to go to OT just to win Game 6 and then win Game 7 on top of that, but the hardest job was already done by Jesus Shuttlesworth.

The Heat then lost to the Spurs in 2013 too. That would have made the Heat 1/4 in the Finals with the Super Team, which would have made LeBron an ugly 1/5 in his career up to that point. Add that with losing 3 out of 4 to the Warriors in Cleveland and LeBron could easily be 2/9 in the Finals. So a couple of butterfly wing flaps one way or the other and LeBron could have left Miami with just one or even zero championships. Imagine that?

Now I love watching LeBron play, I understand I am witnessing one of the greatest to ever play the game, but goddamn was it fun to root against LeBron with KG and Pierce wanting to bury the guy more than anybody every single night.

Kevin Garnett is Officially Getting His Number Retired by the Celtics

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So the Boston Celtics dropped a bomb on everyone last night with a surprise video announcing they would be retiring Kevin Garnett’s No. 5 next season.

With all due respect to Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett will forever be my favorite Celtics player of all-time. Passionate, proud, psychotically competitive, and willing to do anything to win. They do not make them like KG anymore.

After Pierce had his No. 34 retired two years ago it was only a matter of time until KG had his number raised to the rafters. Some may question why the C’s are retiring yet another number (currently at 22 numbers), let alone for a guy who only played six seasons in Boston. Garnett changed the entire culture of the franchise; that’s why.

Without KG the Celtics simply do not win that title in 07-08 and who knows where the franchise winds up. Maybe they continue to suck, maybe Pierce gets shipped out of town, and an entire generation of Boston kids never care about the Celtics. Garnett was that impactful.

Credit: The Ringer

People forget just how bad the Celtics were in 2006 as they went an abysmal 24-58 led by the likes of Al Jefferson, Delonte West, Ryan Gomes, and Wally Szczerbiak. That team also rostered a young Gerald Green, Sebastian Telfair, Perk, Scalabrine, and the immortal Michael Olowokandi. Not exactly shocking they were the worst team in the league not named Memphis.

That 06-07 season was a mere 12 months before the Celtics would become the best team in the league and complete the biggest single season improvement in league history. In 2007-08 the newly constructed Celtics led by KG, Pierce, and Ray Allen came out the box fully assembled and rocketed to 29-3 start as they ultimately went 66-16 en route to beating the Lakers in the Finals.

To put it simply, Garnett made it fun to be a Celtics fan again. He adopted the city and it’s attitude like few before him ever had. At a time when superstars only played in LA, Chicago, Miami and other glamor cities, Garnett lit a fire in Boston with his blue collar, bring your lunchpail to work attitude.

He was an absolute savage on the court too averaging 18.8 points and 9.2 rebounds per game, while winning Defensive Player of the Year, making First Team All-NBA and of course bringing home the team’s first championship in 22 years.

All of that in his first season! Garnett made five All-Star teams and was First Team All-Defense three times during his Celtics career. If Pierce was the face of the Boston Celtics, Garnett was the heart.

People loved Garnett because he was the definition of selfless and it rubbed off on everyone else. This was the 2004 MVP who came to Boston after eight straight All-Star appearances in Minnesota while averaging 22-24 points per game. He was fine taking a step back with his own production dipping down to 15.7 points per game in Boston all while being the de facto team leader.

Not to mention he was a Hall of Fame shit talker.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, will ever bring me as much joy as watching KG laughing it up every time Gino Time played at the end of blowouts.

Garnett is also the guy that coined phrases like Grit and Balls, Honey Nut Cheerios, and was always an A+ interview.

Congratulations to Kevin Garnett for a well deserved honor and good luck to everyone at that game because it’s going to get a little dusty watching them raise No. 5 up to the rafters.

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.

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.

Today Marks the 5 Year Anniversary of the Infamous Boston Celtics Brooklyn Nets Trade of Pierce and Garnett for ALL the Draft Picks

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So Facebook reminded me that today marks the 5 year anniversary of the Celtics-Nets trade of Paul Pierce and KG for a BOATLOAD of draft picks. At the time I was a young’n living in Allston still holding onto the heyday of the Celtics. Hell, that 2012 NBA playoffs commercial for the Celtics is still my favorite NBA commercial to this day.

Young, athletic teams are exciting, but in my opinion nothing is more fun to watch than the old, proud, savvy veterans making a last stand.

I still vividly remember when the trade was first announced on ESPN because I was sitting at White Horse crushing some $2 Coors Lights. At the time I was pretty bummed because I loved Paul Pierce and KG is my favorite Celtic of all time. Cue the Facebook memory!

This was the best Celtics squad of my lifetime finally broken up, and probably a couple of years too late. But don’t tell that to former Nets GM Billy King, who was more than willing to pay top dollar for guys entering their age-36 and age-37 seasons in Pierce and Garnett.

Just look at the fucking quotes from King and former Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov.

“Honestly, did I think we could pull something like this off? No,” Nets general manager Billy King said during a Friday conference call. “… But (Celtics GM) Danny (Ainge) and I just kept working at it and got to the point where we both were comfortable.”

“Today, the basketball gods smiled on the Nets,” team owner Mikhail Prokhorov said in a statement. “With the arrival of Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, we have achieved a great balance on our roster between veteran stars and young talents. This team will be dazzling to watch and tough to compete against.”

Laugh out loud funny looking back.

Obviously that trade has been roasted in the years since and while it seemed like an overpay at the time, it wasn’t completely outlandish. People, Sports Illustrated included, thought the Nets were going to be awesome.

So the thinking was, “welp whats a few late first round picks?”

As we joked on the podcast the other day, the Celtics drafting this year at No. 27 overall is house money — just draft an absolute scrub or roll the dice on an asshole. Late first rounders in the NBA are rarely game changers.

Except, as we all know, the Nets experiment bombed miserably. Historically bad. I joke with my buddy who is a Nets fan that this is going to be the greatest 30 for 30 ever.

For the price of FOUR first round picks the Nets got 75 games out of Paul Pierce and 96 games out of KG. In those two years the Nets went 44-38 and 38-44.

The Nets then blew it up and proceeded to go:

  • 21-61 (2015-16)
  • 20-62 (2016-17)
  • 28-54 (2017-18)

Holy. Shit. What a bad deal.

Meanwhile, with those Nets picks the Celtics went on to draft and/or acquire via trade:

  • James Young – No. 17 overall (2014)
  • Jaylen Brown – No. 3 overall (2016)
  • Jayson Tatum – No. 1 overall (2017) *Celtics traded down to No. 3 to take Tatum and in the process picked up the following piece below
  • Kings 2019 1st round pick
  • Kyrie Irving – via trade of the Nets’ No. 8 overall pick, Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Ante Zizic, and a second round pick

So we actually get one more bite at the apple due to Danny’s draft day trade last year. As long as the Kings don’t get the No. 1 overall pick it goes to the Celtics and that will officially wrap up this debacle of a Nets trade.

Thanks again to Mikhail, Jay-Z, Billy King, and the borough of Brooklyn for fast tracking the Celtics rebuild and putting us back on the brink of the NBA Finals in just 5 years! If Jayson Tatum becomes the 1st-Team All-NBA player like I think he will then Nets fans probably have no choice but to become full blown Celtics fans. I mean when you think about it, this is basically the Bizarro Nets. God its good to be a Boston fan.

 

PS – Oh yea, Jason Terry was part of that deal too, but the Jet only played one season with the Nets as well. Terry is *still* playing by the way as he just wrapped up his 18th season with the Bucks.

Double PS – Lets go back and look at some of the reactions to this trade when it was announced because with hindsight being 20/20 these are some of the worst takes you’ll ever see.

Is Rajon Rondo Resurrecting His Career Purely Out of Spite the Most Impressive Thing He’s Ever Done?

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I’ve never seen a player absolutely thrive on shit talking and haters and proving people wrong more than Rajon Rondo.

Sure, plenty of athletes have a chip on their shoulder, but this is different. This is the same guy that used to smoke kids in Connect Four back in Boston because he was so psychotically competitive.

Rondo’s career looked cooked after he was a disaster in Dallas and then was creating all sorts of drama in Chicago with Dwyane Wade and Jimmy Butler (all not on the team anymore). He had a brief resurgence in the playoffs with the Bulls (averaged 3.5 steals per game) and putting a real scare in the Celtics before getting injured and missing the rest of the series, albeit in a fire flames short sleeve suit.

Now playing for the New Orleans Pelicans he has looked like the Rondo of old, the guy that was putting up triple doubles in between Pierce, KG, and Ray Allen. He’s averaging a career high 12.7 assists per game in the playoffs to go along with 12.7 points per game and 7.5 rebounds per game. His .484 FG% is a career high in the playoffs to go along with a career high eFG% of .531, with his second best season coming during the 11-12 run with the Celtics when he had a eFG% of .482.

And its all because he thrives on the hate. Ray Allen was chirping Rondo while promoting his new book and Rondo clapped back hard. Rondo is now living off of nothing but his opponents frustration as he goes toe to toe with the biggest instigator in the league in Draymond Green. The dude is thriving off of it.

Just egging Draymond on.

Some of us get up in the morning for our families, for our jobs, for our dogs. Rajon Rondo gets up in the morning with the sole pursuit in life of pissing people off while dropping dimes on the hardwood. And for that, I’m grateful.

 

Rondo and Isaiah Thomas Get Into It, Both Get Ejected. I Miss These Guys

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Yahoo – Isaiah Thomas and Rajon Rondo got into a scuffle and were both ejected from Wednesday night’s game between the New Orleans Pelicans and Los Angeles Lakers. And it stems from Boston Celtics beef. The two were each handed double technical fouls and given the boot. While it wasn’t immediately clear from game action why the two were so chippy, the announcers and Twitter speculated that the altercation stemmed from drama over Paul Pierce’s jersey retirement with the Celtics. It started when Thomas, who was due a brief honor from the Celtics after being traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers, asked to have his Boston moment moved to the same night of Pierce’s jersey retirement. The request didn’t have anything to do with Pierce, but Thomas’ desire to have his honor on a night that he would be healthy and playing.

I feel for Isaiah Thomas, I really do. Its like when you break up with a girl and move onto bigger and better things while your ex just spirals downward. He got hurt, got traded to Cleveland and surprise surprise didn’t get along with LeBron, got blamed for a shit Cavs team, and got traded again to the basement dwelling Lakers. And now he’s got Rondo giving him the business.

We had a great time together, watching IT was some of the most fun I’ve had watching the Celtics since KG and Pierce roamed the parquet. So I’ll always have a place in my heart for Isaiah.

BUT, Rondo, man. Rajon Rondo is a ride or die. The guy hasn’t played for the Celtics since 2014 and he still reps Boston just as hard.

Nobody crosses Paul Pierce on Rondo’s watch.

When Rondo was the precocious young point guard, KG took him under his wing and turned Rajon into a bulldog.

Something about Rondo just being a dickhead always endured him to Celtics fans. Like he was his own version of a Masshole. He was at one point compared to Chris Paul as the best PG in the league and Danny Ainge once even tried to trade him for Russell Westbrook straight up, which is laughable now. People forget how good Rondo once was though. But Rondo always showed up to ball and he was always ready to start a fist fight if need be.

I’ll never forget when Dwyane Wade basically broke Rondo’s arm on a dirty play under the hoop and Rondo came back into the game playing with one fucking arm.

 

I respect a good grudge and you just know Rondo, Pierce, and KG still have a deep hatred in their hearts for LeBron, Wade, and probably Ray Allen too. Those guys are a family and you never go against family. In Rondo’s mind, IT disrespected Pierce by asking for his tribute on the same night that No. 34 was going up into the rafters. You disrespect the family and Rondo’s coming for your head.

Ubuntu. Omerta. Whatever you wanna call it, nobody is disrespecting the Celtics legends. Not while Rajon Rondo still walks this earth.

I hate to see my two exes fighting in public, but goddamnit if it doesn’t remind me why I once loved them both.

Time to Make the Donuts

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10 years ago today the Boston Celtics traded for Kevin Garnett and completely changed the makeup of the entire franchise. Al Jefferson, Gerald Green, Sebastian Telfair, Ryan Gomes, Theo Ratliff’s expiring contract, and two first-round picks. Thats what it took to land KG, a guy who’s No. 5 will likely be up in the rafters, and put the Celtics back on the map. A basement dwelling lottery team in the matter of a few weeks acquired both Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett and morphed into a 66 win team. All that after only winning 24 games the year before. Thats 42 additional wins for anyone who didn’t bring their calculator. KG was competitive as hell, tough, intense, generally crazy, and the guy came to ball every single night. Probably my favorite Celtics player of all time. CUE THE HIGHLIGHTS

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!