Okay, I owe the Celtics an apology. I assumed, like most people, that they just didn't have a sense of urgency when they were taken to seven games by the lowly Atlanta Hawks. Their inability to play to anywhere near their potential on the road seemed to reinforce that they were on cruise control.
Then came tonight.
Up 35-40 points for most of the fourth quarter, a raw emotion poured out of the Celtics and Doc Rivers that can only be described as profound relief morphing into jubiliation. Kevin Garnett was hopping around and screaming the F-word for most of the latter half of the 4th quarter. He broke down as soon as Michele Tafoya started interviewing him. He got it together long enough to scream, I think, "Anything is possible!" and "Top of the world!", before dropping another F-bomb. He had tears streaming down his face BEFORE he and Bill Russell hugged it out. Paul Pierce was similarly ecstatic.
Clearly they played poorly because they wanted it SO badly. It's a real shame, for the NBA and its TV partners, that they didn't display this emotion during the entire playoffs. Either way, they went from totally unlikeable to inspiring over the course of three hours.
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