[Bill Simmons]NBA playoffs are 'Wired“[Sr.以上可接][待接]
I need to get the 2011 NBA playoffs a gift. It can't wear jewelry, it can't drive a car, it doesn't need clothes or trophies. Hmmmm. What about honoring it with the greatest television drama of all time?Now here's where you say, "'The Wire?' That show had bad language! A lot of it! Actually, that show reinvented how to say certain swear words! You can't do this! You're going to get fired!"Nope. We have to do it. One of the show's best traits was its language -- it stayed true to the city and itself, never worrying about things like, "We might be turning off potential viewers" and "It's going to be much harder to syndicate the show unless we cool it a little." Creator David Simon only cared about capturing downtown Baltimore. For five seasons, the show documented the city's struggles with the drug culture -- the police couldn't stop it, newspapers were too broken down to cover it, lawmakers were too corrupt to care, and the school system didn't have a chance. Every time a major drug kingpin was murdered or arrested, someone else easily slid into his place.Sounds like the most depressing show ever, right? Not if you grew to love characters like Bunk and McNulty (my favorite buddy cop tandem since Crockett and Tubbs), felt yourself rooting for Omar (a gay, gun-toting Robin Hood who only robbed drug dealers), found yourself fretting because the relationship between lifelong friends Avon and Stringer (a drug kingpin and his business-savvy consigliore) was slowly crumbling, or becoming attached to the four school kids from Season 4 (the greatest season in television history, in my opinion). "The Wire" made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think, it made me so angry that I remember having to remind myself -- more than once -- that these were just actors, not real people.Four years later, as I sifted through quote pages and YouTube clips to assemble the quotes below, it was like looking through an old scrapbook from a vacation I loved. So yeah, some of the language you're about to read is a little harsh. But so was the show. For the purposes of this column, we're going to use some carefully placed asterisks to soften the words as much as we can. If you can't handle it, stop reading right now. Without further ado, 65 of my favorite Wire quotes handed out as awards for the first two-plus weeks of the 2011 NBA playoffs.1. "The game done changed."2. "Game's the same, just got more fierce."To what else ... Round 1! Talent comes in waves, for whatever reason, and we're riding one along the lines of the one Swayze suicidally tried to surf at the end of "Point Break." You're usually stuck with three or four turds in Round 1, or as they're more commonly known, "The NBA TV Teams." Not this time around.Our only sweep (Celtics-Knicks) featured two riveting games in Boston, including Melo's sublime 42-17 in Game 2 that reminded everyone, "That's why you trade five dudes for Carmelo Anthony." Pacers-Bulls and Sixers-Heat ended prematurely but earned Duke The Trainer Memorial, "They don't think it's a damned show, they think it's a damned fight!" status. Zombies-Nuggets had a Hagler-Hearns pace -- both teams came out swinging and never stopped. Lakers-Hornets and Blazers-Mavs featured a few dramatic twists on par with D'Angelo getting murdered before fizzling out in Game 6. Hawks-Magic gave us our mandatory Round 1 upset, laid the groundwork for Dwight Howard fleeing Orlando&andbroke the NBA TV curse. And Spurs-Grizzlies ranks among the best Round 1s ever. Last Wednesday, my friend Whitlock texted me just to say, "these NBA playoffs have been one of the best experiences of my sporting life." We hadn't even had a Game 6 yet!!!3."I ain't no suit wearing businessman like you. I'm just a gangsta, I suppose. And I want my corners."To the Grizzlies, who are violating various rules that we thought we knew about building a playoff contender, including ...• Don't count on Zach Randolph• Don't count on Tony Allen.• Don't count on Zach Randolph&and&Tony Allen• You can always get away with one head case, just don't give him someone to hang out with.• If you're going to try to win a title with a Gasol, make sure it's Pau.• Nobody has ever won an NBA title and said, "The key was when we got into that fight over the card game on our team charter."• Don't expect to advance to Round 2 if your coach has no plan for "up three with 1.7 seconds left and the other team is inbounding the ball."• Don't expect to do much if you're working with $50 million in talent.... and none of it mattered because Memphis is controlling its corners. The Grizzlies went straight-up gangsta on the Spurs and would have clinched in five if not for 48 feet of off-balance jumpers in less than four seconds of Game 5. (Note: I'm really starting to wonder if David Stern released a secret edict about 10 years ago that said, "I know we're much smarter now, and we totally know what to do with a three-point lead and under five seconds to go, but for the sake of entertainment, any team that defends this situation correctly will be fined $500,000.") They're also doing it with over $20 million in dead cap weight thanks to Marko Jaric (bought out for $6.8 million) and Rudy Gay (out for the year, making $13.6 million), and on the heels of whiffing on Hasheem Thabeet and losing the Kevin Love/O.J. Mayo trade. How did they pull it off? The next few quotes explain.4. "You can look him in the eye now. It don't matter who he is, or what he's done, you can look him right in the eye."To Randolph, who had multiple teams say, "We need to take a flier on that guy, he's a beast in the low post," and for whatever reason, everything clicked in Memphis. When he played for the Clippers, I remember being surprised by how much his teammates liked him. I remember appreciating how hard he played. I remember marveling at his low-post skills. And I remember thinking, "This guy has less sense of the situation than any good player I have ever watched." (Back in 2008, Z-Bo's flimsy basketball IQ made a dramatic appearance at the end of my column&.)And that's the part I can't comprehend. How did a black hole with an inflated sense of self-confidence suddenly become such a savvy passer out of the low post? How did someone who sucked defensively suddenly realize how to play help defense? How did someone with no sense of The Moment suddenly grasp The Moment -- like he did with his sublime performance down the stretch of Game 6 against the Spurs, when he single-handedly won the game with an array of semi-impossible shots?5. "I love this city, man, they love me back, you know what I'm saying? So it's good -- it's a blue-collar town and I'm a blue-collar player, I'm a hard worker and this is a hard-workin' town, ain't nothin' been given easy to me, ain't nothin' easy been given to this town, so it's a fit!"Whoops, that wasn't actually a Wire quote -- that's what Z-Bo told Doris Burke after Game 6 when she asked why he clicked so well with Memphis. Thought it summed things up. Once upon a time, the city of Memphis identified with E now it identifies with Z-Bo and that connection has pushed him to another level. You're damn right I put Elvis and Z-Bo in the same sentence! Anyway, I'm making it an honorary Wire quote because Avon easily could have said that about Baltimore.5. "You happy now bitch?"You know what's really crazy? If you remember, Isiah Thomas built the 2007 Knicks around Z-Bo and Eddy Curry with the philosophy (I'm paraphrasing), "everyone else is getting smaller, we're going to get&bigger, we're gonna pound people down low." He just made the mistake of surrounding them with trigger-happy guards (Marbury, Crawford, Francis, etc.) when he should have flanked them with 3-point shooters and role players. But his strategy wasn't wrong. Which brings me to my point: In the spring of 2011, Chris Wallace used Zach Randolph and Pau Gasol's black sheep brother to prove that Isiah Thomas was ahead of his time. I think the Mayans were right -- we're headed for the Apocalypse. Soon.6. "If it wasn't for Sergei here, you and your cousins would both be cadaverous mothaf**kas."To Trick or Treat Tony Allen, who turned into Treat Tony Allen for the Grizzlies after seven years of tormenting Celtics fans and tripling my father's heart medication. Gay's injury turned out to be a goofy blessing for Memphis, as strange as that sounds: these Grizzlies are at their best with Allen and Battier doing their Perimeter Pit Bull defensive routine. I get that Tony needed to get away from Boston, spread his wings, grow his goatee and find himself ... but this????7. "You come at the king, you best not miss."You're damn right I'm giving Omar's famous quote to Chris Wallace! Nobody bitched more about 2008's Memphis-Lakers trade than San Antonio's Gregg Popovich -- a trade that improbably produced two key members of a 2011 contender (Marc Gasol and Darrell Arthur). Did you ever imagine that Pau's formerly fat little brother would be (A) helping to drive a pitchfork into the back of the Spurs dynasty a little more than three years later, and (B) outplaying Pau in an NBA postseason? The
the secon and by the way, the third thing might be Marc kicking Pau's ass in the Western finals, at which point Chris Wallace has every right to dance on the Staples Center floor while screaming, "You hear that, Pop? YOU COME AT THE KING, YOU BEST NOT MISS!!!!!"However it turns out, the Atrocious GM Summit won't be the same next winter without Wallace, who earned himself a two-year respite at least. But how differently should we feel about that infamous 2008 trade? My buddy House and I had the following exchange last week:Me:&I have to be honest, I'm re-thinking that trade a little.House:&What do you mean?Me:&I mean, it's not the worst NBA trade of the century anymore. It might not even be in the top 10.House (incredulous):&What do you mean??? The Lakers made the Finals 3 straight times cuz of that trade! They just won 2 straight titles!Me:&YEAH, BUT STILL!8. "This game is rigged, man. We like the little pieces on the chessboard."For one of my new favorite traditions of the playoffs: the one time every spring when the NBA decides it's a good idea to assign Danny Crawford to a Dallas playoff game even though the Mavs are 2-522 when he officiates their games (all numbers approximate). I'd like to see them take this a step further and have someone surgically altered to look like Crawford's twin brother, then have his "brother" screw up a Dallas game, followed by Crawford confronting him on the court -- you know, like what the WWE did with the Hebner brothers after Andre the Giant&. It's so ridiculous that they're pretending it's NOT ridiculous when he calls a Dallas playoff game, we may as well make it more ridiculous.9. "You can't even think of calling this sh*t a war."10. "Why not?"11. "Wars end."A defining Wire exchange goes to a defining Round 1 image: Dwight Howard borrowing LeBron James' body language from last year's Boston-Cleveland series as the Hawks-Magic series fell apart for Orlando.&I've seen that look before, he's playing hard, only he seems detached, and it kinda seems like he wants the game to end so he can stomp off the court, tear his jersey off and get as far away from his teammates as possible ... hey, wait a second!&Like David Robinson, Clyde Drexler (and maybe even LeBron James) before him, Howard just needs to find the right alpha dog and everything will be fine. But when? And where?12. "Yo I love the first day! Everyone all friendly and sh*t!"To Howard -- if this turns into Carmelo The Sequel and Howard decides during this summer's lockout, "I'm only signing an extension with the Lakers," followed by the Lakers snaring him at next February's deadline for Andrew Bynum and three No. 1 picks, I'm killing everybody.13. "You movin' up in the world. Long as you don't fall into the trash they takin' out."For Serge Ibaka, the 24th pick of the 2008 draft who's suddenly lurking as ...A.&The third-best player on a potential title team.B.&The answer to the trivia question, "Just out of curiosity, what would it be like if Bill Russell fathered a kid in the Congo who didn't play basketball until he was 16, then came over to the States at age 19 and learned basketball and the English language on the fly, and also, we gave him a 15-footer?"C.&The league's single most frightening/intimidating/menacing athlete if the crowd is charged up and you need someone to cover two-thirds of a basketball court in three seconds and block someone's layup from 10 feet behind him.D.&The swing guy in Round 2, because if he can't handle Randolph on the low post (both Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins failed in Game 1), Oklahoma City is screwed.14. "Omar on the one side holding a spade. And maybe Marlo to the other holding a shovel. And just at this moment ... I managed to crawl out my own damn grave. No way do I crawl back in."Prop Joe's ominous quote (he turned out to be wrong) goes to Jason Kidd, who got buried heading into the playoffs and crawled out of his damn grave yet again. For God's sake, Kidd has been playing so long that his love triangle with Toni Braxton and Jimmy Jackson happened only a year after the one with Brandon, Dylan and Kelly.15. "He's a cold motherfu**ka."16. "It's a cold world Bodie."17. "Thought you said it was getting warmer."18. "The world goin' one way, people another yo'."You don't know how badly I wanted to give this to Danny Ainge. Let's give it to the Maloofs instead -- they did everything but load T-shirt cannons with horse manure and shoot them at their fans this past season, and then, when their Anaheim move fell through once the league realized that they didn't have the resources to pull it off (and once the Lakers and Clippers mobilized against them), Joe Maloof had the gall to trumpet the team's return to Sacramento for another year by saying, "I think it's the fair thing to do." Even Clay Davis wouldn't have said that. Hey Joe? If you want to be fair, start showing up for home games again, spend more than the salary cap minimum on your roster and stop pretending that Anaheim is a better basketball city than Sacramento just because they have a few wealthy locals who were dumb enough to pay your debts without gaining control of your team.19. "For your information, I wake up every morning with an angry blue vein diamond cutter. I was gonna enlighten the President of the local 47 on this particular point, and he chose to depart. Blue steel gentlemen. Three and a half inches of hard blue steel."The best "irrational confidence" moment of "The Wire" goes to the best "irrational confidence" guy of Round 1: Atlanta's Jamal Crawford, who really&does&think that he's one of the league's 10 best players and played like it against the Magic. There are six levels for "irrational confidence" guys.The Toney Douglas Level:&Mediocre supporting guys who catch fire once every five or six games, but the team isn't deep enough to pick its spots with them. I'm always terrified of these guys -- if they suck, they're supposed to suck. They have nothing to lose. The key here: you don't want them playing key roles if there's something at stake that they can single-handedly screw up, which is why Doc Rivers buried Nate Robinson in Game 7 of the 2010 Finals and why Miami can't figure out what to do with Mario Chalmers this spring (and why the Heat have been experimenting with LeBron and Wade as the guards lately).The Eddie House Level:&Proven irrational confidence guys who are fishing poles, basically -- you throw their "line" into the water, see if you get a nibble, and if you don't, you pull the line right out. These guys are assets on good teams -- they can carry your offense for a quarter at a time, but they're luxuries in that you aren't ever leaning on them. James Jones tossed out a total Eddie House performance against Boston on Sunday, by the way.The Tony Allen Level:&Role players (usually defensive stoppers) who have a tendency to forget to "stay their lane" -- to borrow a Jeffrey Ross phrase -- and suddenly they're careening through traffic and trying a double-clutch reverse layup on your biggest possession of the game. That's where you apply the Table Test: As long as these guys are bringing more stuff to the table than taking stuff off the table, you learn to live with their irrational confidence moments.The Sam Cassell Level:&Aging veterans who play with such staggering confidence that, actually, it's counterproductive ... especially if there's a better teammate who should be taking those shots. Welcome to Chauncey Billups' last four years. (Cut to Nuggets fans, Pistons fans and Knicks fans nodding wistfully.)The Vernon Maxwell Level:&It's not fair to call Crawford this generation's Mad Max, not when Maxwell helped the '94 Rockets win the title and was so irrationally confident that, more than once, he tried to start fights with Michael Jordan because he really, truly believed that they were on the same level. Crawford has never even played in the Conference Finals. Baby steps.The Robert Horry Level:&Will another role player ever consistently become the scariest guy on the court just because there are 30 seconds left in a tight playoff game? No.20. "We used to make sh*t in this country, build sh*t. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket."To Carmelo Anthony, who left behind a significantly better foundation in Denver so he could play with Amare Stoudemire and a glorified D-League team in New York. Watching him handle triple-teams in the Boston series with a slightly overwhelmed, "Wow, even Gerry McNamara and Hakim Warrick would be an upgrade right now" look on his face was karmic retribution for what happened from July to February. You can't blame a guy for wanting to get paid and wanting to live in Manhattan, but if there's a hard cap coming and/or Stoudemire's body breaks down -- both exceedingly possible -- then Carmelo really WILL become the Evolutionary Bernard King. Right down to the part where Bernard had to waste his prime playing with the likes of Pat Cummings and Darrell Walker. That reminds me ...21. "Murder ain't no thing, but this here is some assassination sh*t."One of funniest moments from "The Wire" goes to the funniest moment of Round 1: The Knicks blowing a potential Game 2 upset in the last few seconds because Kevin Garnett tipped a Jared Jeffries pass that was intended for Billy Walker. Read that sentence again.22. "It's like one of those nature shows. You mess with the environment, some species get f**ked out of their habitat."23. "Did you just use the word 'habitat' in a sentence?"24. "I did."One of the best random Wire exchanges goes to the best random performers of the 2011 playoffs: Paul George (superb defense on Derrick Rose), Thaddeus Young (one of the best energy guys out there), Greivis Vasquez (believe me, I'm as shocked as you), Tyler Hansbrough (who made it clear that he WILL have his day in the sun as a valuable role player on a playoff contender someday), Danilo Gallinari (ditto), Arthur Triche (Atlanta's PR guy&&-- the best ball-busting move of the playoffs), and J.J. Barea (a valuable backup for Dallas and someone who always seems to throw off opposing guards because they look at him and say, "Let's abandon our game plan, I absolutely HAVE to post that guy up!"). And while we're here, let's throw in the Sixers and Pacers for their spirited Round 1 performances -- they were like high-quality wrestling jobbers who worked the crowd, bladed when they didn't have to and got a bunch of two-counts. It's too bad we can't team up the Sixers and Pacers and make them a frisky tag-team -- that's what they would do in wrestling.25. "Yeah, well, now, the thing about the old days? They the old days."To the Spurs, only the fourth No. 1 seed ever to get bounced in Round 1 ... although we can't totally call it an upset because, within a half of Game 1, everyone went from thinking, "Memphis could beat San Antonio" to "Wow, Memphis is going to beat San Antonio UNLESS they choke away a couple of wins because of free throw shooting and/or repeated brainfarting." You can't blame the Spurs for staying loyal to their best three guys until the bitter end, but they also proved why Danny Ainge swung for the fences with the Perkins-Green trade: he felt like the 2008 nucleus had gone as far as it could go, and he didn't want a come-hither moment along the lines of Randolph and Gasol ripping his team to shreds, followed by everyone saying, "It's Danny's fault, he should have done something."Here's the reality: The Spurs were always Tim Duncan's team. Once he stopped being the best player in every playoff series, they stopped winning titles. Leading us to ...26. "There ain't no special dead. There's just ... dead."To Duncan for getting buried and embalmed by Randolph. It's over. Although in this case, there&is&a special dead -- Duncan goes down as the best power forward ever, even if there's a pretty strong, "No, actually, Karl Malone was the best power forward ever as long as you don't count things like 'titles' and 'abject fear in crunch time'" sabermetric case to be made by somebody that I'm sure will leave my knuckles bloody. By the way, the odds of Randolph officially ending Duncan's prime had to be as high as an 11-year-old being the one who killed Omar.27. "Don't seem possible."28. "It don't."29. "That's some Spiderman sh*t there. We missed our shot. Now he goin' be at us."For the single greatest play of Round 1: Manu Ginobili's incredible 3-that-was-eventually-ruled-a-2 near the end of Game 5 against Memphis. Let's at least agree that this was (A) the most important replay review in league history, (B) one of the unluckiest defensive sequences you could ever have, and (C) one of the randomly greatest pressure shots in league history given the stakes. A quick running diary ...09.4 secs left&-- McDyess throws a terrible inbounds pass to Ginobili that Trick or Treat Tony Allen picks off but somehow doesn't catch. The ball ricochets to McDyess, who decides it's a good idea to take a 20-foot running hook with Marc Gasol standing right in front of him.06.9&-- Gasol blocks the shot right to Trick or Treat Tony, who somehow can't catch the ball a second time even though it skins his head and hits both of his hands.05.9&-- Ginobili ends up with the ball right in front of San Antonio's bench. He starts to dribble to the top of the key and quickly realizes that both Allen and Zach Randolph are blocking him. He whirls to dribble toward the right corner.0:53&--&&and go to the nine-second mark of it, then pause the clip with 0.53 seconds on the clock. You'll see Manu with his back to the basket and THREE Grizzlies closing in on him: Gasol closest to the baseline, then Allen, then Randolph. Odds of Ginobili scoring at this specific point: five kajillion to one.0:47&-- Manu whirls toward the corner and decides (I'm translating from Spanish), "I'm going to get to the corner, plant my feet, and shoot a 3-pointer falling out of bounds with a 7-footer closing in on me, and this is definitely going to work."0:38&-- Manu pulls off everything from the previous paragraph. Gasol misses blocking it by a fraction of a fingernail. Referee Bob Delaney is so stunned by the sequence that, with the ball in the air, he signals a "3" with his left hand and a "2" with his right hand. By the way, this wasn't even one of his five worst calls of the game. Somewhere in Scumville, Tim Donaghy nods happily.0:22&-- The ball swishes through the hoop with Manu standing three feet out of bounds. Good God.As you know, his left foot ended up being on the line, preventing it from going down as one of the greatest random saving-our-asses shot ever. If you're looking at the larger picture here, Ginobili will make the Hall of Fame someday because of his three rings and his 2004 gold medal, and what he meant internationally, and for all the other reasons anyone would mention in this paragraph. Still, for someone staring at&&in sixty years, there's just no way to translate his supernatural ability to roll with any situation on a basketball court. His soccer DNA gives him a freelancing ability that nobody else quite has, and really, that ridiculous 3-turned-2 was more of a soccer play than anything. He wasn't the best 2-guard of his generation or anything, but I'm pretty sure we'll see 10 more Dwyane Wades before we see another Ginobili.If you missed Part One,&. Here's Part Two.30. "I treated you like a son."31. "I wasn't made to play the son."To Rajon Rondo, if only because this sounds like something he'd say to Doc Rivers. I have spent as much time trying to figure out Rondo these last few years as either of my kids. He's like a cat: Sometimes he jumps on your lap, sometimes you don't see him for days, sometimes he goes down in the basement and kills mice for you, sometimes he's kicking over his own kitty litter box, sometimes he's inexplicably beating up a poodle, sometimes he's hissing at your children … you just never know. The good thing about him: You always know in the first quarter.&Did we get Good Rondo today? YES! We got Good Rondo!&And lemme tell you something: Boston isn't beating Miami unless Good Rondo shows up four times. At least.32. "Mr. Little, how does a man rob drug dealers for 8 or 9 years and live to tell about it?"33. "Day at a time, I suppose."To Carlos Boozer, Chicago's big free-agent catch who seems to be gaining "Carlos Boozer's 2015 Expiring Contract" potential as the postseason drags along. I don't want to overreact except to say that we're going to need more rebounding, more 15-footers and more chest hair … and soon. Besides, this isn't the Summer of 2010 mistake that's haunting the Bulls.34. ''I admire a man with confidence."35. "I don't see no sweat in your brow either, bro."To Ray Allen, who nailed so many big shots for Boston in four years that it's reached "even if you know we're running this double-screen for him, we're doing it anyway," status and he's still as reliable as anyone. If Chicago doesn't win the 2011 title, it will be because they didn't overwhelm Allen with a three-year, $40 million offer last summer. In their defense, I think&they&thought they were a year away -- they never expected Rose to make The Leap that soon. But why pursue a J.J. Redick/Kyle Korver tandem for the same money that it would have taken to get Ray?Clearly, they read the tea leaves: Barring injury, Ray should remain at this level until he's 38 or 39. One of my favorite parts of this year's "The Association" was learning more about Ray's preparation -- how early he gets to the arena, where he shoots on the floor, how much thought he puts into everything -- and coming away thinking, "Wait, this guy is kind of a lunatic!" And I mean that in the nicest way possible -- he wouldn't waver from his routine for anything, not even if it meant shooting 3s at 4:00 while they were still putting down the floor, or trying to get his drills done as a cheerleading squad practiced 20 feet away. He did everything short of shooting jumpers while muttering "15 minutes until Wapner, 15 minutes until Wapner" or counting 250 toothpicks that just dropped on the floor. As recently as last year, arguing "Reggie Miller versus Ray Allen" was as fun as arguing "The Sopranos" versus "The Wire" -- you could make compelling cases for each side, even if the Reggie/Sopranos backers were arguing with their hearts and not their heads (and romanticizing certain things about the player/show that became distorted narratives over time). After Allen's 2010-11 season? There is no more debate.36. "All Perk can do is foul me. … He's too slow. I don't think nobody in the league can stop me. Not only Perk. I tell Perk to his face. I already told him before.''Whoops, that wasn't from "The Wire" -- that's what Z-Bo said after Game 1 against Oklahoma City. As if we didn't have enough of a reason to be excited about that series -- now here's Z-Bo trying to make Kendrick Perkins' scowl actually explode like a grenade.36. "You are a parasite who leeches off the culture of drugs."37. "Just like you, man."38. "Excuse me, what?"39. "I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. It's all in the game though, right?"One of the best chess moves of the series (Omar turning the tables on a lawyer in court) goes to the best chess move of Round 1: Atlanta's Larry Drew adopting Boston's defensive tactic of "Knock yourself out, Dwight, score as many points as you want, we're singling you and making sure nobody else gets an open jump shot" and daring Howard to put up 50-20s to beat them. It threw Orlando off its game and exposed how pedestrian their 2-through-12 guys are … and by the way, had anyone tried this with Shaq from 2000 to 2002, he would have averaged 50 a game, so Howard's legacy took a small hit even as he was throwing up 35-15s. If the other team's game plan is "Get yours, knock yourself out," that has to mean something. Right?40. "I'm Proposition Joe. You f**k with me, I'll kill your whole family."To David Stern, who might have to work all his magic to prevent the following ABC commercial: "Randolph! Horford!!!!!! It's the Grizzlies and the Hawks, Game 1 of the 2011 Finals, June 2 on ABC!"(And you know what? Even though it's totally far-fetched, it's not that far-fetched: The Grizzlies are playing better than anyone in the W the Hawks are threatening to become the first team that ever quit on its coach in the regular season, then forgot they quit once
and if the Bulls continue to look like a regular-season mirage, and Miami and Boston wear each other out, who the heck knows what will happen? For the record, I'm not willing to give up on the Bulls -- they remind me of the 2008 Celtics in that they played the regular season in fifth gear, now they're trying to find that Fast and Furious NOS button for an extra burst. If you remember, it took the 2008 Celts two and a half rounds to find the NOS. I bet the Bulls find it. You wait. And yes, I'm making that prediction while being fully aware that their only crunch-time play right now is "Get out of Derrick's way.")41. "My name was on the street? When we bounce from this sh*t here, y'all going to go down on them corners and let the people know: Word did not get back to me. Let them know Marlo step to any motherf**ker. Omar, Barksdale, whoever. My name is my name!!!"To Dwyane Wade, who obviously got tired of hearing how well Boston played him and submitted a pantheon performance in Game 1: scoring at will and ending up with 38 points, chasing Ray Allen around dozens of screens, finding time to goad Paul Pierce into getting thrown out, even carrying himself with the same defiance that Marlo had after finding out that his name was on the street.&Command of the room.&That was Wade in Game 1. I continue to be most frightened of Miami when Wade is Michael Eisner and LeBron is Frank Wells.42. "We gonna see who got the bigger war chest."To our first Dirk/Kobe playoff series ever. I have no idea how this never happened before -- it's like Rick Fox never having sex with one of the Kardashian sisters, it's practically a statistical impossibility.43. "You think I'm going down dontcha? You-you-you think I'm done. All you ungrateful bitches think you can throw me out of the boat."To the great Chris Paul, who left his knee brace behind, shifted from third to fifth gear and played two of the best games in the history of the point guard position (Game 1 and Game 4) against a superior Lakers team. I tweeted this before, I'll say it again: We should be burning DVDs of those games and making them mandatory viewing for every aspiring point guard at every basketball camp.&This is how you play the cdth create good shots for other guys, keep them involved, keep them playing hard, keep motivating them, take care of the ball, make the right decision on every fast break, and when things break down, you need to take over and score yourself.&He's the evolutionary Isiah Thomas, the best pure point guard who ever played, and if you had to pick ONE special subplot of Round 1, it has to be this: Because of his knee issues, we didn't know if Paul could get to this level anymore. Wrong.44. "That's my money."45. "Man, money ain't got no owners. Only spenders."Another classic Omar quote (from when he robbed Marlo during a poker game) goes to Orlando GM Otis Smith. Hey Otis, do you realize you have $57 million committed to seven guys for the 2012-13 season, and none of those guys are Dwight Howard??? Do you want to work for TNT, NBA TV or ESPN that year? I'd start thinking about it now.46. "That's good. That's like a 40-degree day. Ain't nobody got nuttin to say about a 40-degree day. Fifty? Bring a smile to your face. Sixty? Sh*t, n****s are damn near barbecuing that motherf**ka. Go down to 20? N****s get they bitch on. Get they blood complainin' ... but 40? Nobody give a f**k about 40. Nobody remember 40, and y'all n****s is giving me way too many 40-degree days."One of the most colorful monologues in the show's history (Stringer Bell yelling at his drug soldiers to step it up) goes to Phil Jackson, whose Lakers team is definitely giving him too many 40-degree days. It's OK for a former champ to trust your on/off switch and wait until you feel that familiar wall against your back (the '88 Lakers, '95 Rockets and '02 Lakers are three good examples), but once you start wearing that switch out, you never know when the wrong team can catch you … like how the '07 Cavaliers caught the Pistons, or how the '11 Grizzlies caught the Spurs last week. That switch has a shelf life. These Lakers can beat the Mavs in 40-degree mode, but not the Grizzlies or Zombie Sonics (much less the best Eastern team).Speaking of Stringer, here are three more reasons why "The Wire" was the greatest show ever: Not only did it shove the show's lead (McNulty) into the background for an entire season, but it killed off the show's single most compelling character (Stringer) with two seasons to go AND killed off everyone's favorite character (Omar) halfway through its final season. It went against everything that's ever worked in television history, but it also fit into the premise of the show: There were no winners in Baltimore, only survivors, and you never knew when your time was going to be up.47. "Well it seem like I can't say nuttin' to change y'all minds."To the NBA, who made the same mistake it makes every year: using local announcing feeds in Round 1 over two professional, impartial announcers who may have called the game without cheering wildly for one of the two teams. For Game 2, the poor Grizzlies fans had to listen to Sean Elliott and his yahoo play-by-play partner cheer for the Spurs like Little League parents, repeatedly use the word "we," and compare Ginobili's return from an elbow injury to Willis Reed's comeback in Game 7 of the 1970 Finals. All so the NBA could save a couple of grand in traveling expenses. Here's an idea: Charge an extra quarter next year for the NBA Season pass, then spend that extra windfall on real play-by-play guys like Ian Eagle and Sean Grande so this never happens again. We'll all chip in. I promise you.48. "I see you favor a .45."&49. "Tonight I do. And I keeps one in the chamber in case you ponderin'."To Dirk Nowitzki, who reinvented himself over the years as a fiery competitor with the single most unstoppable move in basketball: his foul line post-up game that always seems to result in (A) him whirling around his defender and getting a layup, (B) him spinning around, sticking his elbows right in the defender's mug and launching a jumper that starts over Dirk's head, or (C), him fading away with an awkward-looking fade-away that has to rank alongside Hakeem's Dream Shake and McHale's mega-fallaway in the Shots That Seem Technically Impossible But Go In Anyway pantheon. Do you have any idea how that shot goes in? Me neither. I also have no idea how to stop that post-up game. Double him and he kicks to an open shooter. Single him and he scores. You can't win. Two more years at this level and Judge Simmons will begrudgingly have to start taking "Would you rather have nine transcendent years from Bird or 13 killer Nowitzki years plus the five after that when he reinvents himself as the greatest version of mid-1990s Sam Perkins ever?" arguments. Crap.50. "What's up playboy, how come you're wearing that suit? For real, it's 85 f**kin' degrees out here, you tryin' to be like Pat Riley."51. "Man, look the part, be the part mothaf**ka."As badly as I wanted to give this one to Erik Spoelstra, we're giving it to Scottie Brooks, wholooks the part, and that's about it right now. Why can't Brooks get Westbrook under control? Why does Oklahoma City look so confused offensively in the last four minutes of close games? Why do they have such a nasty habit of falling behind by double digits in games? Why do they always make me say, "Wait, is Flip Saunders coaching this team and nobody told me?"52. "Mr. Mayor, about Ervin -- if you don't mind me asking -- why keep him as a puppet commissioner when you can just fire the guy?"53. "We mind you asking."To the Knicks ... why are they keeping Mike D'Antoni again? I say trade him to the Warriors for a second-round pick and let him find his Part 1 of his three-part manifest destiny: coaching a team that scores 110 points a game, can't get a defensive stop, has two guards scoring 30-plus a game and occasionally plays home games that make you say, "158-153 -- is that a bowling score or the score of last night's Warriors game?"(In case you're wondering, Part 2 is "coaching a WAC team that averages 100 points per game" and Part 3 is "returning to Phoenix to coach the Mercury." And … scene!)54. "You're not even worth the skin off my knuckles, junior."To Joakim Noah -- it just seems like something he'd say, or even better, something a veteran power forward would say after debating for 5 to 6 seconds whether to punch him in the face or not. Not since Bill Laimbeer have we seen someone deliberately agitate playoff opponents like this -- that's why I parlayed the Bulls beating Atlanta with over 2.5 head butts by Zaza Pachulia on Noah.55. "As rough as that neighborhood could be, we had us a community. Nobody, no victim, who didn't matter. And now all we got is bodies, and predatory motherf**kers like you. And out where that girl fell, I saw kids acting like Omar, calling you by name, glorifying your ass. Makes me sick, motherf**ker, how far we done fell."One of the show's most poignant moments (Bunk laying into Omar and everything he stands for) goes to the most poignant moment of Round 1: Brandon Roy's unfathomable Game 4 performance, when he dragged Portland back from 20 down for an astonishing comeback victory that doubled as "The Round 1 Game You Would Have Most Wanted To Be In The Building For" and guaranteed him a free trip to the 2011 ESPYS. I wrote once that true sports fans feel obligated to watch&everything&hoping they might catch one of those rarer than rare sports moments -- something that might happen once every 2,500 times -- and that we put up with the other 2,499 times for that 2,500th time when something magical might happen. The Brandon Roy game was definitely a 2,500th Time Game. There's no question. I will always remember watching it. That specific player, in front of those specific fans, at this specific point of his career? I still can't believe it happened.Quick tangent: During the tail end of Larry Bird's career, after his body had betrayed him, my father and I went to a playoff game against Detroit when Bird couldn't hit anything. Then a bird flew from the rafters, parked himself near midcourt and wouldn't leave. The crowd started chanting, "Lar-ree! Lar-ree! Lar-ree!" They got rid of the bird. Larry came out and started making jumpers. A bunch of them. The fans were beside themselves. We won the game. And as we were leaving, my dad looked at me and said, "Did that just happen?" Anyway, it's one thing to watch a game like that on television -- but being in the building for a "Did that just happen?" game. You never forget. You just don't. The Blazers may have lost in Round 1, but their fans will always have that game.56. "Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeee-eeeeeeeet."Clay Davis' signature line goes to me and my friend Sal, who made one of the great wagers in sports history if gambling were legal (we took Memphis in 5 at 20-to-1 odds), opted against hedging with the Spurs in Game 5 … and you know the rest. Put it this way: If Sal and I had bet on the U.S. killing Osama bin Laden in 2011, the Navy Seals would have missed him. Sheeeeeeeeee-eeeeeeet.57. "You know what the difference is between me and you? I bleed red and you bleed green. I look at you these days, you know what I see? I see a man without a country. You're not hard enough for this right here and maybe, just maybe, not smart enough for them out there."Avon's famous quote to Stringer (the scene when their friendship undeniably started to fall apart) goes to Russell Westbrook, who unleashed some serious Stringer potential with his Marburyish performance in Game 4 in Denver: 30 shots and two egregious "don't you know that you have Kevin Durant on your team???" bricks in the final two minutes.I joked all season on Twitter about the Avon/Stringer potential with Durant and Westbrook, never seriously thinking it might manifest itself, that a balcony scene was looming, that they'd end up wrestling on the floor, or even that Durant might give him up to Omar and Brother Mouzone someday. And it may have just been a one-game aberration, obviously. But this goes back to the "stay in your lane" concept. Westbrook is "hard enough for this right here" (you could never question his competitive fury, which ranks up there with anybody), but he's not always "smart enough for them out there" (getting teammates involved, taking care of the ball, controlling the pace of the game, etc.). At least not yet.58. "You know Avon, you gotta think about what we got in this game for, man. Was it for the rep? Was it so our names could ring out of some f**king ghetto street corners? No man, there's games beyond the f**king game."Sorry, I'm not done with Westbrook yet. Oklahoma City has enough talent to win the 2011 title -- it's sitting right there for them -- but it's going to hinge on how Westbrook runs the show. There's a game beyond the f**king game and I don't think he can totally see it yet. He's learning on the fly. A crash course, if you will. I don't trust him yet. Stephon Marbury never found that balance between
Allen Iverson only found it when they moved him off the ball. Can Westbrook find it on the fly? Either way, Durant's unreal fourth quarter in Game 5 was the best reality check possible: He basically hired Brother Mouzone and Omar to shoot Stringer Westbrook. We'll see if he comes back from the dead.That reminds me, I thought Chuck and Kenny did a spectacular job of breaking down Westbrook's struggles in Game 5 -- he took some heat for the first time (for Game 4) and it clearly affected him, but as Kenny pointed out (I'm paraphrasing), if you want to be great, you need to learn how to handle being the hero and being the goat. That's the final stage for a basketball player. Durant struggled earlier in the season, took some heat, questioned himself a little, and ultimately, it made him stronger. Now it's Westbrook's turn. To be continued.59. "Be subtle with it, man. You know what subtle means?"60. "Laid back and sh*t."To Mark Cuban and Phil Jackson, who spent the last decade&&and finally get to whip it out for a playoff series with rulers and everything.If you're scoring at home, I have "Cuban versus Jackson" ranked as the seventh most compelling Mavs-Lakers subplot behind "Dirk versus Kobe"; "Who are the Lakers' best five guys?" (somehow we're at Game 89 and they still haven't figured it out, which is NOT a good sign if you're a Lakers fan); "Are the Mavs deliberately defending Kobe with Kidd so Kobe's eyes will light up and he'll shoot 30 times a game?" (I say yes); "If Marc Gasol becomes more relevant than Pau, is that the biggest brotherly upset since the time when Charlie Murphy briefly became cooler than Eddie?"; "Did you ever think J.J. Barea would be an X factor of any professional basketball playoff series that wasn't being played in Eastern Europe?"; and "Will Lamar learn to clean up after himself on this week's 'Khloe and Lamar'?"61. "Now you make sure you tell old Marlo I burned the money. 'Cause it ain't about that paper. It's about me hurtin' his people and messin' with his world. Tell that boy he ain't man enough to come down to the street with Omar. You tell him that!"To the Celtics, who carried themselves with this kind of swagger for much of the Garnett Era … then Tony Allen left, the Perkins trade happened, Big Baby went into his bizarre swoon, Nenad Krstic turtled into his shell, Jeff Green developed the "overwhelmed college kid who just wants to transfer" face and Garnett slowly turned into "The Guy Who's Suddenly Not As Much of a Bully Because He's Not Totally Sure That Anyone Has His Back." Chicago noticed and exploited it during their April 7 Miami did the same in Game 1, intentionally turning things chippy and knocking Boston out of sorts. The Celtics aren't protecting their corners like they once did. That's the bottom line. We're heading to the point that Doc Rivers might need to charge the court&&to flip this around, because I'm not sure anyone else on the team wants to do it.62. "It doesn't matter if he said it or not. People think he said it. Can't let that sh*t go."To Kobe Bryant, who spent the last few years fueling himself with petty slights just like Jordan did once upon a time, only now he's looking at the possibility of being the second-best player in two straight series (Round 1 against New Orleans, Round 2 against Dallas). We've seen Kobe get outplayed in a series before -- like Detroit in 2004, or Boston in 2008 -- but not since he was playing with 2002 Shaq could we definitely say, "Kobe Bryant is absolutely NOT the best player in this series." Chris Paul pl Nowitzki might be next. How will Kobe handle that? Will he overcompensate? Does he know, deep down, that he's entering a different phase of his career? Does he have something left in his apex predator tank and we just haven't seen it yet?I was talking to Someone Who Knows Kobe recently and this person was telling me, adamantly, that Kobe only cares about passing Jordan's six titles. The all-time scoring record? Blah. Being the best Laker ever? Blah. He measures himself by rings. Or so this person claimed. Well, if that's true, and Kobe can sense the changing of the guard that's happening right now, with the Dirk/Kobe/Garnett/Duncan/Pierce/Kidd generation doing everything it can to fend off the Rose/Durant/LeBron/Rondo/Paul/Howard generation -- no different than Avon figuring out how to handle Marlo, if you think about it -- then Kobe's history suggests that he will start overcompensating soon (more shots, more hero complex stuff along the lines of Game 1 against Dallas) and Phil Jackson will start planting those thinly veiled digs to bring him back into the fold, and they'll be doing their old dance one last time. It couldn't end any other way.63. "A life, Jimmy. You know what that is? It's the sh*t that happens while you're waiting for moments that never come."To LeBron James. We're waiting.64. "Marlo ain't worth it, man. Nobody is."65. "Marlo's an assh*le. He doesn't get to win. WE get to win!"I was going to give this defining Wire moment (a frustrated McNulty just being unable to accept that Marlo's kind always ends up winning in the end) to every Celtics fan for how we feel about the Heat. Then it struck me: You could give this exchange to five or six fan bases. You know what came back for these playoffs more than anything else? Good old-fashioned sports hate. Everyone hates Miami. Miami fans hate Boston and Chicago. Chicago fans hate Boston, Miami and the Lakers. Lakers fans and Dallas fans will learn to hate each other -- quickly -- and don't forget, nobody despises a team more than Dallas fans hate Miami. And then there are Lakers fans and Celtics fans, who hate each other's teams almost religiously at this point.&They don't get to win. WE get to win!&It's the recurring theme of the 2011 playoffs. God bless 'em.
翻译完工时间：2011.??.??
翻译作品链接：
原文标题: NBA playoffs are 'Wired'
Bill Simmons
^o^ 刚看到此篇，坐等human wikipedia......屏幕分四块，左上wikipedia，右上imdb，坐下google，右下baidu ^o^
加油哦，干翻逼儿·西门厮
引用2楼 @ 发表的:
^o^ 刚看到此篇，坐等human wikipedia......屏幕分四块，左上wikipedia，右上imdb，坐下google，右下baidu ^o^
加油哦，干翻逼儿·西门厮
elgin老师不接下此篇咩？
引用3楼 @ 发表的:
elgin老师不接下此篇咩？
i may sound crazy, but aint psycho yet..... hell no
没得接~~~杀过~~~
原来我总寻思BS这厮怎么文章出的这么少这么慢
现在......自己翻来方觉苦，码点字不容易啊
为了避免悲剧，我就看看，然后飘过......
这么久了没人接么？我试试吧...
ls威武！！！
加油加油
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