6/6/12: Anything’s Possible!

Eight knuckle push-ups.

Kevin Garnett went up for a rebound in the first half of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Udonis Haslem corralled the ball for the Heat and in the same sweeping motion, sent Garnett crashing to the floor. He lay there, milked it a good 15 seconds, then rolled over and proceeded to do push-ups, on his knuckles, to the roaring approval of the home crowd.

The next day, Boston sports talkers called Garnett’s act “cheesy” (and who knows what the rest of the country thought), but it fired up the fans, the team, and especially Garnett. KG is the classic example of a guy playing with a chip on his shoulder. You call him old; he plays young. You bang him to the floor, he takes it, rolls over, does some push-ups.

“Stop me,” he says. With some F-bombs thrown in.

And he did eight push-ups. Already down 2–0 to a heavily favored Miami team in the Conference Finals, you can’t tell me KG wasn’t fully aware the Celtics were eight wins from an NBA title. That’s what they’re playing for. The Celtics, for all the stinkers against Atlanta and Philly, all the times we blamed the refs, all the big leads that slipped away and fourth quarters that left fans on the verge of regional heart failure, have always been fully cognizant of the task at hand: win the title against all odds.

After a Game 5 upset on Miami’s home floor, KG and the Celtics are five knuckle push-ups away.

This playoff run has been a lot of things. A last hurrah. A chance to gather with my great friends, Ming and The Brick, to devour chicken fingers, drink 23 oz. beers, criticize the officials, hoot, holler and carry on just like we did for years on the airwaves. I’m texting and tweeting with my buddy Padraic from the couch. Calling up Dad the next morning to break it down.

And to paraphrase Celtics radio voice Sean Grande, it has been the very definition of sleep deprivation, with the referee throwing the ball up at the ungodly hour of quarter to nine every night.

KG recently said “I have no life at this point,” in reference to his single-minded pursuit of a championship. He’ll deal with everything else later. That’s kind of how I feel right now, knowing every other night, I’ll be up past midnight, sweating out another Celtics fourth quarter. I’m gassed. But I’ll deal with everything else later.

A lot of times, particularly in that Philly series, the Celtics have looked old. They’re in year five of a three-year plan. Ray Allen will be 37 in July. KG just turned 36 and Paul Pierce turns 35 in October. But Rondo has flat-out carried the team when they’re needed him to, and when he’s been off his game, as he was at times in Game 5, the three future Hall of Famers have come through.

And the bench!

Whenever a guy comes out of nowhere to contribute during a postseason run, I’m always reminded of the fifth game of the 1991 Playoffs. This was early in my Celtics fandom. An ancient Celtics team, gutting its way through a first round series against Indiana, got a huge boost from veteran Derek Smith. Playing on one leg, Smith clamped down on Pacers gunner Chuck Person and muscled his way to 12 points in 22 minutes of play, with Marv Albert singing his praises as only Marv Albert can.

You might also remember this as the game where Larry Bird nearly broke his face chasing down a loose ball and heroically emerged from the locker room to break Indiana’s back with a huge fourth quarter. But who held it down while Bird was out? Derek Smith. Smith retired that summer and died from a heart attack five years later. You might be a little more familiar with his son, Duke point guard and current NBA pro Nolan Smith, but I remember Derek Smith’s last stand and it was legendary.

Other have assumed the Derek Smith role over the years. P.J. Brown. Leon Powe. The Shrek and Donkey show with The Big Linus and Nate Robinson a couple years ago. This year’s model has been lifted by a group of guys we never expected to get much burn at the beginning of the season, their participation mostly a necessity with the losses of Green, Wilcox, “Iron Horse” Jermaine O’Neal, and Bradley.

Keyon Dooling is a journeyman backup guard who has been stellar when Rondo needs a rest. Mickael Pietrus had knee surgery in the preseason and usually clangs away but has locked up LeBron and been unafraid to take the big shot. Greg Stiemsma out-hustles everybody when he’s out there. And Marquis Daniels persevered through a horrific spinal cord injury and a season where he looked washed up to provide energy off the pine and give us one of my favorite GIFs of all time.

In 2010, the Celtics had a 3–2 lead in the Finals and couldn’t close it out. I wonder if it haunts the veterans on this team. This is their last chance to do something about it. With four rotation players out with injuries, two of whom required season-ending heart surgeries, the Celtics have shown no lack of heart this postseason.

Heart first, Hall of Fame talent second and a little bit of luck could get them back to the NBA Finals. I love this team. I’ve loved these last five years as a Celtics fan and I don’t want it to end.

The Celtics don’t want to close the yearbook, either.

So for one last time, fire it up.

This post was originally published to The Fox Hole on WordPress, June 6, 2012.