The Blue Workhorse

Although my favorite team emerged victorious, in what once was the focal point of my birthday celebrations as a youth (watching Jordan hoist trophy, after trophy, after trophy…) has become a mere afterthought. I pondered the underlying reasons to my recent apathy towards the David Stern-managed league and came to one conclusion. The NBA is apathetic towards me.

There is no effort to reach out to me as a young to middle-aged professional male with strong lifelong ties to an organization. (Please understand generalizations such as this are not made of malice or ill will. Assessments of a broad section of people are not reflections of all members of a race or class, but a statement of opinion regarding generalizations arrived at through casual observations of my brief 23 years of life.) This demographic has been ignored since the late 1990s.

When K.C. from Sports of Boston asked me to give my outside perspective on the NBA Finals for their extensive coverage of Boston’s first championship appearance since 1987, I jumped at the opportunity.

For my first ever guest post, I broke down six different matchups that will help determine this year’s champion. In conclusion, I chose who would win each of the matchups and made my NBA Finals prediction on who would wind up carrying around the big golden trophy.

Be sure to check it out: Sports of Boston’s An Outside Look at an Intriguing Matchup written by none other than myself.

I know it’s a little bit late but I finally got around to putting up a couple of pics I took from Game 3 and Game 6 of the Atlanta Hawks/Boston Celtics NBA playoffs first round matchup. There are not too many because being the fan that I am, it makes it kind of difficult for me to take pictures instead of cheer on my team (especially when the games are as exciting as Game 3 and Game 6 were and your team is making its first playoff appearance in almost a decade).

In our latest article, 33 Observations from Celtics/Hawks Series, I commented on a number of things (everything from Mike Bibby’s comments to the KG/Zaza Pachulia altercation to the possibility of Atlanta having a “Big Three” in the future) that occurred during the exciting seven game first round series between the Boston Cs and the Atlanta Hawks.

After writing the article, I e-mailed our new-found oppositions in debate over at Sports of Boston — an interesting and well-written site that covers each of the Boston professional sports squads, who previously had responded with Why the Hawks Will Fly South this Series in refutation of Why Hawks Will Ruin Celtics Title Hopes but also wrote an apology after we came close to being absolutely genius due to the Game 4 altercation.

One of their Celtics’ writers, Geoff, countered our 33 observations with Reactions to a Hawks Fan’s View of Round 1.
In response to particular points made by us, Geoff wrote 8 points of his own. And I, of course, am now required to write a rebuttal to some of his statements:

I bought tickets for Game 3. I predicted the Hawks would make the playoffs before the season began, so I had to support my team regardless of how they had played in Games 1 & 2. I was able to observe a lot that I might have missed during the broadcast, so I started observing things throughout the remainder of the series.

Here are 33 of my observations from the Hawks/Celtics series (some obvious and some that might not have been):

Atlanta Hawks: Where Shock the World Happens - When attending Game 3, I saw a guy with a posterboard sign that simply read “Shock the World.” Last night for Game 6, everyone who attended was given a shirt with the same words branded across the front. Nearly every ‘expert’ predicted a series sweep, especially when Boston handily won the first two games, but the Hawks surprised many by winning Game 3. They then adopted the mantra wholeheartedly and startled many when they won …

After winning the Eastern Conference Atlantic Division and having the best record, not only in the Eastern Conference but in all of the NBA, during the regular season, the Boston Celtics entered the playoffs with aspirations of hoisting the golden trophy as NBA Champions this season.

However, it could be the lowly eighth-seeded below .500 Atlanta Hawks that ultimately lead to the all-powerful Celtics demise. How is that? How could a 37-45 squad bring down the dominant 66-16 team that beat them in five consecutive contests prior to Game 3 of the first round?

The Blue Workhorse is an independent sports blog encompassing the four major professional leagues in North America as well as NCAA athletics.
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