3 Hours With the Celtics, the Rockets, and a Baby on My Lap

What, you were expecting a play-on-words headline? Yeah, that particular gene has been temporarily disabled.

I'm gonna do something crazy here to mark the return of the wildly underrated KFS blog. I'm gonna watch a basketball game and comment on it in real time. To my knowledge, this has never been done on the internet. Thinking of calling it "Jogging Journal" or "Now to Now Blogging."


THE SETUP

For those of you reading this 5 years from now after clicking on "Archives", printing this out, and sitting on your toilets (which have a much higher flushing capacity and come with Cottonelle Wipes dispensers and a pop-up HDTV), here's a little background for tonight's action:

In a league that has been perennially criticized for featuring the most god-awful slow regular season in sports, the '07-'08 NBA campaign has seen more twists and turns than the Suzuki track on Pole Position (really, I'm doing this once per paragraph. Bite me). More importantly, the number of legitimately great players is at an all-time high and scoring and free-flowing play is on the way back. Now, add in the fact that the C's have a shot to bring glory back to one of the league's cornerstone franchises, and that the Rockets are currently riding a 22-game winning streak, and by golly, people are talking about an NBA game in March.

PREGAME

Well, I already royally f'ed this up, as the game isn't even on CSN (nee Fox Sports New England, nee SportsChannel, nee Prism). I was counting on half my material coming from Tommy Heinsohn. Instead, CSN is handling the pregame show only, before handing it off to TNT. Hopefully, this means some Sir Charles goodness will fill the void.

9:02 - From the studio, Tommy says that the Rockets have benefitted greatly from the resurgence of Dikembe Mutombo. Well, actually he said "Dicumby Matembo" the first 3 times before nailing it. Jameson Whiskey - it's what's for dinner.

9:11 - So, even though they aren't announcing the game, Mike Gorman, Donny Marshall, and Greg Dickerson are at the arena anyway doing some analysis. Of course, it wouldn't make any sense for them to be standing out on the court, so they happen to be back in the bowels of the stadium, standing under a stairwell or something. I'm pretty sure I just saw Mankind hit Golddust with a mophandle in the background.

9:27 - Tommy says goodbye by pretending to quickly scribble on the sheet of paper in front of him, newscaster-style. This guy actually did the play-by-play for road games back in the early 90s with only Bob Cousy to rein him in. This would have been when their away games were on Fox - "And now you've heard the word - FOX25 has got Bill, Bart, and Bird!" Memory is a weird mistress.

9:30 - Channel 764 brings us TNT in lovely high definition. Ernie, Chuck, and The Jet are in the studio.

9:35 - Ernie - "Charles, did you hear what Wolves GM Glen Taylor said about his team today?"
Charles - "We suck?"

9:40 - Kevin Harlan's doing the game! I either like this guy or hate him. Can't wait to remember which.

9:41 - Starting lineup graphics. If a production crew hands you a ball and tells you to ham around a little bit, how do you not palm the ball and hold it out in front of you? Even the Tim Duncan Robot does it.

THE GAME PROPER

9:42 - I love these green and gold uniforms. I do not love Tony Allen starting.

9:42:30 - Somebody stole the tap for Boston, so it's Rockets ball on the side. I'll take a poll when this is over to gauge public opinion, but I'm thinking I won't talk about every play. Pioneerin' ain't easy.

9:43 - Except now Rafer Alston and Rajon Rondo almost come to blows during the first stoppage. It would be so awesome if the two most clever PGs in the league got tossed and I spent the rest of the night sleeping through 178 iso sets.

9:47 - I noticed this during last night's game against the Spurs, too, but James Posey is so awesome on the bench. Every C's basket, he leaps out of his chair, sticks his chest out towards the crowd and nods his head. In a related story, Shane Battier just went through his jab series from the triple threat position.

9:51 - You're not going to believe this, but KG just grabbed two offensive boards and put one back, then ran up the court spewing about 43 varieties of the f-word to himself and anyone else within a 3-mile radius. But yeah, I totally miss Gerald Green.

9:55 - Should I be mentioning commercials?

9:59 - Boston officially means business - PJ Brown is getting 1st Q minutes. Unfortunately, he just got eaten alive by Dicumby, who gives the finger wag of doom and is still making his way upcourt as I type. See, this is exactly the kind of thing that sinks my NCAA brackets every year - now I'm thinking about how much I hate Georgetown and I'll have them going out in Round 2. If Battier plants a foot in Paul Pierce's nuts later, I won't know what to do.

10:07 - T-Mac gathers in a rebound, glides up the floor, effortlessly pulls up for what looks like an automatic three, and then, at that exact moment that awful Gwen Stefani song (nope, not that one. Nope. Ye...wait, no. There you go) gets pumped into the arena and McGrady bricks it. Just desserts, that.

10:09 - We made it to the end of the first quarter, people. This is going splendidly, I think. The inventor of the "live blog" would be proud. And I am. I have no idea what the score is, by the way.

10:13 - OK, now on the floor for the Rockets: Shane Battier, Luther Head, Bobby Jackson, Chuck Hayes, and something called a Mike Harris. Did I mention these guys haven't lost since the middle of January? And of course they're running the Celtics bench plus Pierce off the court right now. These are the times when, as a Celtics fan, you just have to remember that KG, Rondo, et al won't be resting for 20 minutes a game in the playoffs like they are now.

10:18 - Changing the channel for the first time - Syracuse barely beats Robert Morris in the first round of the NIT. Morris is now free to join the Rockets in time for the 4th quarter. Lurking on the other side of Syracuse's "region" is UMass. 1996 called. They want cell phone technology to hurry up and get here so that they can call from anywhere to say that those two teams were really good in 1996.

10:23 - One of Eddie House's tattoos says "E HOUSE", which is totally normal. But why is it written in Ye Olde English font? Is he Eddie House of the Kensington Houses?

10:30 - Mike Harris is apparently miked up for TNT, and they come back from break showing him fumbling the ball out of bounds and saying "my fault". Good to know that kind of thing isn't limited to midnight madness at the Y.

10:33 - If I told you one of the Rockets was hustling just a little too much, grabbing offensive rebounds, tripping over himself, and flopping on every drive, your first reaction should really be, "there's a white guy on the Rockets that comes from a country that loves soccer?" To make matters worse, I just remembered he's in my fantasy lineup this week and looks like the kind of player that the coaches specifically tell to not to shoot the ball under any circumstances. Maybe I won't score 1300 points for once.

10:42 - It's halftime, Cameron is sleeping soundly before 4AM for the first time in his life, and I've got the big couch all to myself. I think I better call this one early. Hey, not bad for our first time out. Baby steps, people.
Hey, there's my pun!