Crushing

It was a good weekend to be a Boston fan. Some quick thoughts on the weekend...

He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue...

The Celtics played a series against Atlanta that saw both teams hold serve at home. The C's just lacked the intensity on the road that they had at home. They gave a sub-.500 team hope.

Then they crushed them.

The closest the game ever got was when the Hawks went up 3-0 in the first quarter. It was over by the half.

With more than a quarter to go, the Celtics went up 70-34.

Early in the third the Hawks Marvin Williams put Rajon Rondo on the floor with a flagrant foul and was kicked out of the game. Kevin Garnett went old-school. Larry Bird would have been proud. Garnett put a vicious screen on the Hawks' Zaza Pachulia, putting Pachulia on his ass.

The bottom line, the game was never in doubt and maybe, just maybe the Celtics have figured out what they need to do going forward to put another banner in the Garden's rafters.

One last note - big time players come up big in big games. Atlanta's Mike Bibby, a one time all-star, was a virtual no-show in the games in Boston. His line in game one - 5 points, 1 assist; game two - 12 points, 1 assist; game five - 6 points, 1 assist; game seven - 2 points, 2 assists. Atlanta lost those games by an average of 25.25 points.

Now, I will admit to not being the biggest basketball fan, but I seem to recall that point-guards like Bibby are the guys that set the offense and rack up the assists. He averaged 1.25 per game in the Garden to go with his 6.25 points per game average in Boston.

To put that in perspective, Bibby, on his home court, averaged 5.67 assists per game and 15.67 points per game. Way to be clutch.

Rays rocked by Sox...

In the weekend's three game series Tampa scored ten runs - an average of 3.3 runs per game. Not great, not terrible. Certainly good enough, if their pitching is solid, to come up with two wins in three games.

Didn't happen.

After a brutal stretch in which the Sox had trouble scoring runs, they absolutely exploded against the Rays. Through the three games Boston put up 26 total runs - just under nine per game.

Jon Lester had possibly the best outing of the Sox' starters, going six innings while giving up one earned run on four hits. It was his second straight quality start. A day earlier, Josh Beckett went eight innings, but gave up four runs, and in the first game rookie starter Clay Buchholz was good in giving up only one run, but was lifted with one out in the sixth inning.

All told, however, Sox starters gave up six of Tampa's ten runs, with four coming from Beckett. Lester and Buchholz combined for a 1.46 ERA in their two starts. It can be dismissed that it was done against the Rays until the following is considered - the second place (yeah, you read that right) Rays are 6th in the AL in RBI's, home runs, and 9th in batting average. Overall, 14th in RBI's, 13th in home runs, and 15th in average. They are, indeed, a solid, middle of the road sort of team with pitching (through this weekend) comparable to the Sox (4.12 staff ERA to the Sox 4.13)

Different directions...

This is the Jets-Patriots relationship in microcosm...

Since Victor Hobson (signed this off-season by the Patriots) was drafted by the Jets in 2003, the linebacker has been solid, racking up fewer than 50 tackles only once (45 in 2004). He has averaged 68.6 tackles per season, racked up 11 sacks, and 3 interceptions. He has appeared all 16 games all but once in his five seasons.

The Jets let him go to free agency without a fight. Then they went out and signed Calvin Pace away from the Arizona Cardinals. Pace, drafted in the same year as Hobson, has appeared in all sixteen games in in three of his five seasons, racked up an average of 37.2 tackles per season, 14 total sacks and 1 interception. If you discount the 98 tackles he had in his contract year, Pace averaged 22 tackles per season, had a total of 7.5 sacks and no interceptions.

I can't help but think that it's going to be another long season for Jets fans with signings like that.

Catching up with a busy weekend

But first, more pics of Isiah Thomas in his new roll as Milton Waddams for the Knicks...


Stupid is as stupid does...

So, the Rocket is back in the news, this time for an alleged 10-year extramarital affair that started when he was 28 and the other woman was 15. Roger Clemens' attorney released a statement, not denying a relationship with the now washed up 32-year old country singer, but denying that the relationship was of a sexual nature.

Clemens might be telling the truth here, however, there are a number of things that just don't pass the smell test here.

I want to address some of those things.

First - I spent five years as a teacher at the high school level, and in the 22 years I have spent as a martial arts instructor, I have been friendly with a number of teenagers. I have mentored several of them, but have spent no time with any of them outside of a classroom setting (except in the very rare case in which I am friends with the child's parents - which has always been the case before I had the child as a student). I would not call any of them a sustained relationship over a ten year period, no matter what my age.

Second - What ended the "platonic" relationship after ten years? Sure, I have friends, going back to elementary school, whom I don't talk to or see as often as I once did. But I would not describe those relationships as ended at the time we stopped talking as often.

Some of those friends I talk to once a year, sometimes less, and see those people even less frequently, but they're still people I consider to have a relationship with. The relationship hasn't ended. Just changed.

As for women with which I had physical or romantic relationships - yeah, most of those had definitive endings complete with hostilities and cessation of interaction. Some I can pinpoint the dates on, if I really went back to think about it. None of those were platonic.

What I have to ask at this point, would any of this have hit had it not been for The Mitchell Report?

Two by Two

The Celtics stomped on the Atlanta Hawks in the first two games of the playoffs, winning by an average of 21 points in those two games. The Hawks have been slightly better than the Celtics for the last two in Atlanta, averaging a seven point margin in their wins.

I mention this for the following - the series returns to Boston for game five.

A basic fact about the two teams -

Through the season and including the playoffs, the Celtics are 37-6 at home and 31-12 away. Atlanta, is a respectable 27-16 at home. In 43 road games the Hawks have only won 12 - or to put it another way; Atlanta has won a little better than one in every four road games while the Celtics have lost a little less than once in every six games at the Garden.

Unless the Hawks can rise to the occasion and steal one in Boston, the best Atlanta will do is make a respectable showing by forcing the series to seven games. I just have a hard time seeing the Hawks taking one on the road.

Panic attack

The Sox have lost five in a row to slip into second place, mere percentage points behind the Rays and Orioles. The skid coincides with a flu that has run through the Sox clubhouse, forcing the team to start Jon Lester on three days rest (for everyone knocking him - yes it wasn't a great start, but he still gave the team an opportunity to win, giving up four earned in five innings - the same number of runs the team put up over the same number of innings). The bullpen screwed the pooch, and the offense went away.

A pretty good description of what has happened with the team during the skid.

In the next game, rookie Justin Masterson spun a six inning gem, giving up one run. The offense was decent, scoring five runs over the course of the game, but the bullpen gave up six over the final three innings.

Even Tim Wakefield qualified for a quality start, making it through six innings and giving up only three earned runs against the Rays, Clay Buchholz gave up two runs in eight, and Beckett only one earned in seven. Even when the Sox put runs on the board, the hitting failed in the clutch.

All that noted, it's way too early to panic. Sure, JD Drew has reverted to 2007 Drew, but he's not the only one to have disappeared at the plate. For the most part, David Ortiz hasn't shown up yet, and only Julio Lugo and Dustin Pedroia got hits in the Sunday night game that made the Rays' James Shields look like the second coming of Nolan Ryan. The night before only Drew, Coco Crisp, Jed Lowrie, and Jacoby Ellsbury hit the ball. This won't last.

It's the end of April. It is way too early to panic.