I'm a sports fan and anybody who knows me knows that it is no secret. Football and basketball are the two sports I follow the closest with baseball making a surge once the NBA Finals conclude. I have never been able to get into hockey for reasons I unsure of. I never understood the rules when I was younger, nobody I was growing up around ever watched hockey and with my lack of knowledge in the sport I feel that is the best reason I'm not interested in it. I could spend my entire day watching football and basketball though, especially football and Celia can attest to that. My passion for sports is one of the many reasons why this deployment has sucked. I was fortunate to watch the Arizona Cardinals miracle run through the playoffs and near Super Bowl upset but I missed all of March Madness. I'll be home in time to catch the NBA Finals but not home in time to witness every game of the greatest playoff series ever played. I'm of course referring to this year's Eastern Conference first round match between the Chicago Bulls and Boston Celtics.
It all began last year when Chicago lucked out by winning the first pick in the NBA Draft. They had something like .000001% (exaggeration) chance to win the lottery and they did just that. Every sports outlet debated if Chicago should draft Derek Rose or Michael Beasely, the two best prospects in the draft. Having watched Rose masterfully run the point at Memphis en route to leading them to the National Title game against Kansas the choice seemed simple to me. Chicago decided Rose was a franchise point guard and I immediately got excited about Chicago's young and talented team. Then I got deployed.
It really was that abrupt. One minute I'm drinking a beer and changing diapers, the next minute I'm rubbing sand out of the corner of my eye. I attempted to follow Rose's and Chicago's progress throughout the deployment but it was next to impossible to truly be aware of everything that was going on. Then a month and a half ago I moved from the small JSS UR located on the western side of Sadr City to the luxurious life of FOB Falcon. FOB Falcon had it all compared to JSS UR: a good gym, a good dining facility, a PX, and wireless internet for my own personal room. Life was getting good, real good. The best part for my sports addiction was very rarely did we have a heavy workload that consumed the vast majority of the day. Like a junky jonesin' I was able to get my ESPN fix anytime I wanted. Constant updates, sports radio, Sports Center in the DFAC every morning for breakfast, reruns of previous games, you name it I got it.
Right around the time I truly got settled in the playoff standings were set, Chicago made their way into the playoffs landing the #7 seed and would face the defending champion Boston Celtics. With Kevin Garnett sidelined most people were anticipating for this to be a competitive series with Boston winning in 6 games, maybe 7 games if the Bulls played lights out. Most people felt that all other playoff games were undercards for the inevitable LeBron/Kobe, Cavs/Lakers championship. What everybody didn't expect was that Chicago and Boston would be the pinnacle of the 2009 playoffs with every other series vying for second place.
I've only been able to watch two games so far of this series due to the 7-8 hour time difference in Iraq. The first game I saw was Game 1 featuring Derek Rose's 36 point playoff debut; the second game was the double overtime, instant classic Game 4. I don't want to write a recap of what happened in those two games because anybody who is even mildly interested with the NBA is already aware. Instead, how great is this series? I mean really, how great is this series? There have been 6 games played to date with 4 of those 6 games going into overtime. 2 of those 4 games went into double overtime. 5 of the 6 games have been decided by 3 points or less. 3 points or less! The only letdown of this series was Game 3 when Chicago forgot to show up and got blown out on their home court. That has been the only flaw of this series. Other than Game 3 this series has been a total chess match. Either team could have won this series already, that's how close it is.
Before Game 6 I had been wondering to myself how this series ranked in terms of greatness in the playoffs. Before Game 6 I was certain it was definitely a top playoff series of this decade with the only potential debate coming from the 2002 Sacramento/Los Angeles series where the NBA fixed the outcome preventing the Kings from advancing to the finals. That was really the only series I could think of that could rival the performance of Chicago and Boston. Following Game 6 and a TRIPLE OVERTIME victory by Chicago, facing elimination, left little for debate. This is the best playoff series I have ever seen in my lifetime. Regardless of the outcome in Game 7 you will have to wait many years to find a playoff series to rival the greatness of Chicago and Boston, in any sport for that matter.
This series has been so fun to watch, read about, talk about, write about, and wonder how the next game can possibly surpass the previous game. This series has everything a basketball fan, no, everything a sports fan wants to see. Derek Rose is 20 years old and showing us that his best is still yet to come. Ray Allen has been playing like Jesus Shuttlesworth in He Got Game and proving he is more clutch in this series than anybody in a long time, well since maybe Reggie Miller. The Derek Rose/Rajon Rondo point guard match up has officially kicked off and thankfully both are still young in their careers. Kirk Hinrich (an Iowa boy) wanting vengeance on Rajon Rondo tossing him into the scorer's table making you know there will be blood in Game 7. This series has been so compelling that every morning I wake up, even before I brush my teeth and go to the bathroom, I check ESPN for the score of the games I missed. I am so compelled to this first round that tomorrow I will be shopping around on EBAY and Amazon in hopes that this series will be available for purchase. I know it's a long shot but having missed so much of the action I feel it's the only thing I can do to tell the Bulls, "I'm sorry."
If you are in the states, do yourself a favor and do me a favor, tune into TNT tonight and witness the finale to the greatest series ever played. I'm scared that Game 7 will not live up to the hype but in no way shape or form do I want to take the chance that it won't. That is why I have every intention of going to sleep early tonight and waking up at 3:00 a.m. Iraq time to catch the tip off. While the world knows that Kobe and LeBron are waiting for each other in the Finals I know that even those two can not surpass the team effort displayed by both Chicago and Boston. So I'm going to chug about 25 Monster's (can't drink beer here), give myself a kidney stone, and hope that Vinny Del Negro doesn't blow the best thing for the Bulls since Michael Jordan.
Go Bulls!
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