The Collapse Of The Year (And It Doesn't Involve The Mets!)

I am not sure what I am happier about in regards to this Lakers-Celtics Game 4. For one thing, the Lakers lost, thus all but clinching a series lost. That is fantastic. But because it happened, it kinda washes clean the memory of the Mets' third consecutive save blown by Billy Wagner yesterday. Also related to the Mets, the word "collapse" has been used to describe my beloved baseball team's 2007 season quite a bit, but I think the Lakers just put a new trademark on the word. And finally, I wasn't at home for the second half, so I have it TiVo-ed, so I get to watch every Jack Nicholson shot with relish as Lamar Odom shrivels into a tiny, little ball.

I watched the first half at home and was not thrilled with what I was watching. To be honest, it did not seem out of reach that the Celts would get back into it. They had a 12-0 run in the second, and there was simply no way that the shooting percentage could stay as high for the Lakers or as low for the Celtics. But then Kobe Bryant hadn't made a single hoop yet either.

So at halftime, I set the game to record and left for my Ultimate league game (in which we stomped on the team of a huge jerk, closing the game on a 14-5 run). My intent was to not listen to the radio and not find out the score so I could go home and watch Game 4 after my game. Of course midway through our second half, someone yelled out, "What? At home? No way!"

News got around that the Lakers had collapsed (see, I used it) and all I could think of was how fun it would be to watch it when I got home now that I know what was coming, and that what was coming would make me very, very happy. On the way home from my game (and the ensuing team trip to a bar), I listened intently to AM570 - the Lakers' broadcast station - as callers tried to make sense of their lives in the wake of this collapse. "We would have won with Bynum." "At least the Spurs didn't win it." "Garnett may win the title, but Kobe is still the MVP" (which is probably what Kobe is thinking too).

This weekend I am working at the Special Olympics in Long Beach, and thus missing out on the free tickets my wife just told me she got at work yesterday for the U.S. Open (ouch). But during those hour car-rides down and back, I will get to listen as all the L.A. sports radio guys' heads implode. I cannot wait to hear Vic the Brick Jacobs choke this one down. He may honestly be dead.

Of course the bad news in that the obnoxious Bostonians get to enjoy a title (it is a foregone conclusion now, right?), but I think it means less to them than the Patriots winning the Super Bowl would have, so I take considerable solace in the fact that my Giants screwed that up for them.