What a finish to the 2007-08 NBA season this past Tuesday night! A thirty-nine pointing romping of the Lakers, courtesy of the Boston Celtics, helped end an exciting season of basketball on rout to their seventeenth championship. The Celtics proved naysayers like your friendly neighborhood F-Bomb once and for all, that in the regular season and playoffs, that THEY WERE THE BEST TEAM.
Congratulations to Finals MVP, Defensive Player of the Year Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen, along with head coach Doc Rivers. Truly an amazing season by gang green. Now let us look at some of the great occurrences and ones not so much this past season...
We saw the emergence of the next generation of great point guards in Chris Paul and Deron Williams, who helped their teams reach the Second Round of the playoffs, before falling to the Spurs and Lakers. Not to be outdone, shooting guards Kevin Martin of Sacramento and Joe Johnson of Atlanta stepped up their game. Dwight Howard emerged as a perennial All-Star, should he continue to dominate the boards and make slight adjustments.
Hedo Turkoglu also increased in every statistical category, winning this season's Most Improved Player award. However, this season was not just about the remarkable seasons of the Atlanta Hawks, Orlando Magic, Los Angeles Lakers and New Orleans Hornets. Nor is this season just about the Rockets' 22-game winning streak (15 of them without Yao Ming!).
This season was also about what teams didn't do. It was as much about teams' success, as it was another team's failure. Two glaring examples of that are the Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns. The Mavericks made a lopsided trade by sending Devin Harris, DeSagana Diop, Trenton Hassell, and the retired Keith Van Horn for Jason Kidd. The Suns traded their best defensive and disgruntled player Shawn Marion for the injury-prone Shaquille O'Neal.
Much like the Lakers who traded Kwame Brown and the draft rights to Marc Gasol for former All-Star Pau Gasol, the Suns and Mavs wanted to make a move that could give them that extra boost. It wasn't that Dallas was a bad team this year, but that the Western Conference was too good for them to make it out of the First Round.
- B/R Ticket Guide
Not only was the Western Conference too good, but as was Chris Paul, who outplayed Jason Kidd and led his Hornets past the Mavericks four games to one in the opening round of the playoffs. The Suns didn't have much luck themselves, dropping to the defending champion San Antonio Spurs four games to one. Soon after both series, Mike D'Antoni and Avery Johnson were on the way out. Johnson was fired, while D'Antoni surprisingly joined the New York Knicks.
Of course, who could forget the NBA's most improved team, the Boston Celtics? They not only won sixty-six games after only winning twenty-four last season, but won their first division title since 2005. What Gang Green would do in the postseason is what really mattered, though.
After surviving a seven-game series against the eight-seeded Atlanta Hawks and Cleveland Lebrons, the Boston Three Party faced their toughest challenge against the team with the second best record in the league: Detroit Pistons. Many, such as yours truly, picked Detroit to win considering they had more experience and Ray Allen had lost his game.
Boy, I was wrong. The Celtics clearly had more desire and took out the Pistons in six games. Flip Saunders was soon fired after Detroit dropped in three straight conference finals under him. The Celtics now set their sights of the Los Angeles Lakers, who made a huge improvement, securing the number-one seed in the West, along with the division and their first Finals berth since 2004.
The Celtics however, had not been this good since 1986, when they won their last NBA title. Once again, I picked the Lakers to expose Gang Green, considering they had "Mr. MVP" Kobe Bryant and "Zenmaster Flex" Phil Jackson. Once again, I WAS WRONG.
The Celtics won every game they played convincingly, while Kobe and Co. seemed to win two games by the skin of their teeth. Doc Rivers' crew showed us why defense still wins championships, finishing off the yellow and purple in six games, including a thirty-nine point demolition in Game Six.
Certainly, the Celtics were better than we all thought. Finals MVP Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Doc Rivers, and Danny Ainge all redeemed themselves with Boston's first basketball championship since 1986.
The 2007-08 NBA season will be remembered as a turning point for the league, post-Jordan era. It will be remembered for new stars and an amazing playoff race developing in the Western Conference. Let's not forget about the young stars that emerged this past season or Tim Donaghy placing officiating under a microscope. We also lost a great player in Chris Webber to retirement.
This will also be the season remembered for the Lebron James/Jay-Z vs Washington Wizards and the Souuuuulllllljaaaaa Boy (as Tony Kornheiser says), along with Carmello Anthony and Tracy McGrady failing to get out of the First Round of the Playoffs (again). Oh, I almost forgot about the Isiah Thomas firing. I hadn't felt so proud to be a Knicks fan, since 1999!
Most importantly and positively, the 2007-08 NBA season will be remembered for the stunning turnaround by the Boston Celtics. They not only proved all naysayers wrong, but gave inspiration to any team, no matter how bad one is, that everything can change in a year if management makes the right moves via a trade or draft picks.
The trades for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett not only changed the Celtics' culture, but past draft picks Leon Powe, Glen Davis, and Rajon Rondo helped Boston secure an NBA championship this year. I am sure every team is now realizing that it may take just a few moves to get closer to where every franchise really wants to be.....*COUGH* Knicks *COUGH*
With the Bulls and Heat having the top draft picks, could they be next years' Celtics? Not if Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce have anything to say about that.....
-Fred "The F-Bomb" Richani
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