On Playoff Excitement and Rivalries

It has been years since I regularly felt the soft caress of a blog--fingers expertly intertwined with binary in an explosion of mental voyeurism... as such, please be gentle.

Sex with computers aside, I wanted to start off with a playoff series that has been recently occupying my time. Let's talk about the Boston Celtics/Chicago Bulls first round NBA playoff series, arguably one of the best first-round playoff series of all time. What makes it so good? Well, there is the great skill shown by the competitors... Ben Gordon proving himself to be a deadly, clutch shooter; Ray Allen, aka Jesus Shuttlesworth, cementing himself as a Hall-of-Famer; Paul Pierce putting the Kilts on his back and essentially carrying them through long sections of games; and newcomers to the spotlight like John Salmons, Glen "I refuse to refer to a grown man as 'Big Baby' " Davis, and Derrick Rose playing out of their minds. There is also the fact that, in 6 playoff games, 4 have gone to AT LEAST 1 overtime... the overtimes adding almost an entire extra game worth of time to the series.

However, I think the part of this series that makes it so compelling is good old fashioned hate. These two teams flat out don't like each other... which, as far as I can tell, is a recent phenomena for these particular rosters. Yes, the Bird Celtics and Jordan Bulls has a few good series, but I can't recall these players hating each other so much. And I also can't recall another NBA series in recent memory with more stitches: Hinrich as stitches; Miller has stitches; hell, Pierce has stitches IN HIS NOSE. It's been about two decades since the Bad Boy Pistons traded punches with almost every team in the league... and since then there have been very few basketball rivalries as emotional and violent as this one.

Perhaps it's my youth watching mostly football and hockey, but I love this level of hate in my sports. When I think of great rivalries from my youth, one of the first and best ones that comes to my mind is the Red Wings/Avalanche rivalry of the mid-to-late nineties. Yes, they were both talented teams, but it wasn't a Wings/Avs series unless there was AT LEAST one full-ice, goalie-on-goalie brawl. And, at the time, I don't think there was a single fan who didn't want in on those fights. The emotions were so high for fans that the mere mention of Colorado or anyone on the Avs roster to me, a Wings fan, and my teeth clenched, knuckles turned white. I was ready to go. If you and I were having a conversation, and you mentioned that you liked the Avalanche, the conversation was OVER. Not only was the conversation over, but if you wanted to fight about it, I would have been up for it.

And that's the level of pure, unadulterated hatred we're talking about with the Bulls/Celtics right now. Both Boston and Chicago are great sports towns, and the intensity and ferocity of this series is great for the NBA. This is the kind of rivalry that transcends fan-dom and engrosses the casual fan or, better yet, fans of other teams. It's only the best rivalries that makes fans say, "Sure I want to watch my own team, but I CAN'T MISS this game." Yankees/Red Sox, Ohio State/Michigan, Duke/North Carolina, Colts/Patriots... the kind of rivalries that you watch regardless of which team you root for or where you live. I think that THIS SERIES (Bulls/Celtics) is the kind of series that moves a rivalry into that elite category. If you're not doing anything tomorrow (Saturday) night, I encourage you to check out game seven of this series... if nothing else, to see who will need stitches.

Another thing I want to talk about is those idiots in the stands of games who, on the phone with their 'buddies', stand up and wave to the camera. We get it... you're at the game. Good for you. Now sit down, dumbass... you're in the way.