Whitlock: Boyz From the Hood Triumph over Whimpy Euros

Now that the Boston Celtics have exposed the Los Angeles Lakers as frauds, much of the NBA offseason will be spent discussing why it’s nearly impossible to win pro basketball’s most prestigious title with a roster polluted with non-American players.

Oh, of course, this discussion will only transpire after we in the media finish blaming Kobe Bryant for not dragging LA’s collection of soft, spot-up shooters to the championship. The first rule in the NBA is to blame Kobe for whatever goes wrong.

Yeah, the Lakers quit. They had no interest in extending this series to seven games. I’m not sure they wanted to leave Los Angeles on Sunday. They did everything they could to lose game five, but the Celtics wouldn’t cooperate.

Anyway, Kobe will get blamed for all of this. He’s an easy target, far more inviting than Phil Jackson, who is 3-8 in his last 11 NBA finals games.

After we’re all done trashing Kobe and ranting that a Michael Jordan-led team would never get humiliated in an elimination game, we’ll turn our attention to Pau Gasol, Vladimir Radmanovic, Sasha Vujacic and the overall lack of toughness that is a byproduct of a roster that is too international.

'We Are The World' works in the music industry and bombs in the NBA, or at least that’s what we’re going to hear until the Olympics tip off.

The Celtics just won their 17th title with an all-homegrown playoff roster of brothas. Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Kendrick Perkins, Rajon Rondo, James Posey, P.J. Brown, Eddie House, Leon Powe, Glen Davis, Tony Allen and Sam Cassell developed the toughness and tenacity that lifted the Celtics to a world championship title on American playgrounds.

We may no longer make the best cars, but we still produce the toughest and most reliable NBA players. No one is going to question that after this series, no matter what happens in the Olympics.

A team of Americans defend, take charges and refuse to surrender the lane to high-scoring shooting guards.

When Kobe tried to get to the rim, he found Allen, Posey, Pierce, Garnett, Perkins and head coach Doc Rivers all standing in his path. When Pierce played pick-and-roll, slashed to the bucket, Vujacic and Radmanovic grabbed Pierce’s free hand and escorted him straight to the basket.

That was the difference in this series. Pierce and the Celtics went anywhere they wanted on the court. International players are more fundamentally sound than our players at the offensive end, but they can’t match American players’ mental and physical versatility on the defensive end.

Tuesday night in the clincher, when the Celtics built a 23-point halftime lead, Garnett finally took full advantage of his freedom to roam the low post, scoring 17 first-half points on eight-of-12 shooting.

Gasol was overwhelmed. Phil Jackson tossed little-used reserve Ronny Turiaf on the court, trying to give the Lakers some in-the-paint toughness and energy. It was too Turiaf, too late. Boston was off and not to be denied.

I changed my return flight from Friday to this morning at halftime. Boston’s commitment to defense made a Lakers rally an impossibility. You don’t cough up 20-point leads when the identity of your team is defense. Defense is slump-proof. It’s dependent on effort.

Boston’s effort was superior in this series from the opening tip. Boston’s best player (Pierce) asked to guard Kobe Bryant in the second half of game four. Pierce didn’t shut down Kobe. The significance was that Pierce wanted the challenge of defending Kobe.
http://www.kansascity.com/182/story/668737.html

 

Re: Whitlock: Boyz in the Hood Triumph over Whimpy Euros

Rajon Rondo sounds vaguely European. Are we sure he's one of us?

 

How about Lamar Odom?

 

What was Jason's take when the Spurs beat the Cavs, Pistons, etc? Even their best American player is from the mean streets of the Virgin Islands.

 

'too Turiaf, too late'

 

I swear a year ago I heard Whitlock saying that the Spurs dynasty played so well as a team because they had so many selfless international players who did not grow up immersed in our destructive urban hip hop culture.

But now he tells us the Celts won because they're full of hardass homegrown brothas who out-toughed them softie foreigners.

Can Whitlock write anything that does not contain broad-brush stereotyping?

And, btw, haven't the Spurs also been about the league's toughest lock em down defensive team over the last several years? Wait, but that can't be--Americans are the tough guys, Furriners are the fundamentally sound softies--Whitlock says so.

 

Flawed premise. Everybody knows Scot Pollard is the reason the Celtics are hanging another banner and he's white.

 

And Turiaf's French. Can't believe he thinks he's tough and didn't make some crack about surrender.

No question the Celts have a great defense, but they did cough up a 23-point lead, in about six minutes, in Game 2.

 

Interesting stat that I thought of last night. In three of the past four seasons, the Detroit Pistons have lost to the eventual NBA Champions.

08- Celtics
07-Cavs, but the cavs didn't win.
06-Miami Heat
05-San Antonio Spurs
04-NBA title

I mean they still suck in the Eastern Conference Finals, but thats an interesting stat.

 

It's like the Yankees earlier this decade — the team that knocked them out won the World Series: 2001 Arizona, 2002 Anaheim, 2003 Florida, 2004 Boston.

 

That was one of the all-time stupidest columns Whitlock has ever written.

 

What a bunch of stereotypical dreck. The Celtics were indeed the tougher, better team, but it didn't have anything to do with their ethnic makeups.