The announcing team seemed to thrive off of the fact that they and the viewers all knew and the team didn’t. Only coaches were supposedly filled in during the game but the players were left in the dark. Watching Paul Pierce’s on-court interview after the win, he had a legitimately shocked look on his face when he was told of the injury (surely how the team wanted Pierce to find out) was a rare innocent look into an otherwise cocky exterior.

Now, all Rondo can do is sit on the bench for the remainder of the year and hold out to bet on March Madness once the time rolls around. We can really only hope that he will continue to travel with the team and embrace his leadership role off the court as he more-often-than-not did on the court. Hopefully Red Bull makes some sweet suits.

There is now a solid argument to be made about where the Celtics go from here. On one hand, EVERYONE as of Sunday morning was reporting that trades were imminent, no one was safe, etc etc etc. Now, somehow, post Rondo injury, Doc is saying ”You can write the obituary; I’m not,” and everyone wants to rally behind Pierce and Kevin Garnett.

Somehow, the fanbase of the green has started to turn. The arguments have been made that the Celtics will be better as currently constructed without Rondo. The team will focus on defense more with Rondo out is apparently the thought.

There is obviously no right answer to what the Celtics should do. What they shouldn’t have done was trade Kendrick Perkins for Jeff Green but that’s in hindsight!

Should the Celtics approach this reset season similarly to the way the Indianapolis Colts looked at the Peyton Manning season? Do you let what happens happen and take the lottery pick if it is there and hope to rebuild? Trade off key pieces on this years team and rebuild for next year? They say trades for rentals are not what they once were.

Or do the 2012-2013 Celtics need to stay where they are and plan a push? Sure that leaves for an unsteady future but at this point, it’s about not falling off the map, right?

As for Doc Rivers, he seems to be pretty set on continuing with what he has.

“You can write the obituary; I’m not,” Rivers said. “You can go ahead, but I’m not. We won tonight and so, the way I look at it is, we’re going to stay in there. In my opinion, we’re going nowhere.”

Fear not, Patriots fans! 

FOOTBALL SEASON IS HERE!

If that got you all jazzed up like Gronk on a Friday night, go ahead and click here for exercise programs to blow off some steam. Otherwise, NFL football begins Wednesday night with the Giants facing Dallas and the Pats take to the field Sunday at 1pm!

This team looks a lot different than any fans would have expected it to. With cuts last week affecting Deion Branch, Brian Hoyer, Jabar Gaffney, and many more, the Pats are looking thin in places fans thought there was unbelievable wealth.

This Patriots team in 2012 will be the youngest team to have ever played under Bill Belichick’s tutelage. Few veterans will be donning the world-famous blue and silver this season and it’s completely on purpose.

If there is one thing that Patriots fans have tried to put in the back of their mind for years, it is that Belichick and Tom Brady will someday leave this team and leave the game of football. The Patriots seem to be starting that process Belichick’s way. A way that New England has come to trust without question.

Brian Hoyer was released making Ryan Maillett the clear second string QB and heir-apparent to Brady, unless something better comes along in the meantime. Hoyer could be a very serviceable QB eventually, but his timing in conjunction with Brady’s slowly depleting window simply will not allow him to thrive here.

The wide receiver situation will be interesting to watch play out. Of course Brady has his toys at this position along with his tight ends to continue to be one of the highest scoring offenses in the league. The positions are simply going to be thinner than they may have seemed to be just a few weeks ago. In the end, Josh McDaniels has returned to Foxboro and his success with Brady is very well documented.

The offensive line will continue to give Patriots fans heart attacks throughout the season and I have to believe it could very well be a bit of a turnstyle part of the team. Only a few men stand between New England’s Golden Boy and hungry hyenas looking to rip his head off.

The defense in a whole has been a project for a couple years. Young and hungry, this defense should be a massive surprise this year. The linebacker corp is honestly a pack of starving dogs ready to get to work and the rest of that side fo the ball should be right behind them and fueled by their excitement.

No matter what, the Patriots are about to return some pride to sports fans in New England. We can now proudly speak of our team on Facebook and Twitter, don our jerseys in public, and devote game days to sitting on the couch with friends and wobbly-pops. All things the Red Sox have recently stripped from our lives.

Welcome back sports fans and LET’S GO PATS!

Welcome fans to the new era of the NBA, of should we say the FBA, the Fantasy Basketball Association.

After the moves of the last few seasons, NBA betting on Top Bet has become an art form. Gamblers everywhere are now trying to pick how much a team will win by, rather than who will win. In David Stern’s NBA, there are haves and have-nots.

With Dwight Howard now joining Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash in Los Angeles, along with the (“not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4…”) Miami Heat, the NBA Finals are all but set up months before the season even starts.

Boston fans have become used to being told that the Celtics started this trend but I would hardly say that Paul Pierce after 10 seasons in Boston being paired up with a mid-30s Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen was a super power. They are players who brought together their team-first attitude and hard work ethics and made a Championship. The super power teams of today are made up of players fans would h ave only planned to see playing together on NBA 2K12.

The NBA continues to head in the wrong direction. Instead of spreading out the greatness, it is being concentrated and as the league loses fans in those markets that simply cannot keep up, contraction is almost imminent at some point.

David Stern may support the super teams or he may not. No one knows. A betting man would definitely believe he does enjoy it. Takes a lot of heat off his referees if the players are making the winning decisions for him and it is all about the playoffs for Stern.

The regular season, for whatever reason, doesn’t matter to Stern. 82 games multiplied by 30 teams… Nah, we’re focused on the 2 months of postseason play. Bring together my best players and make them battle to the death (not literally, that’d be weird).

Get ready for another action packed NBA season folks, just don’t expect a whole lot of surprises.

Both radio stations, both major print sources, and hundreds of blogs coupled with the anonymous blabber machine of Twitter have allowed for the Sox contingency to hear every gripe and complaint coming from outside of Yawkey Way in 2012.

All the sports betting action you can imagine could not have won you any money this season. No one could have predicted that the Red Sox would have the lackluster year they have had after last September’s collapse.

Most of the media sources spent most of the year focusing on players who were cancers to the clubhouse, bashing injured players, with slight jabs at the Red Sox brass. Strangely, following the trading deadline, the media’s attacks on players have been completely abandoned and the focus is ALL on the ownership, Larry Lucchino, and Bobby Valentine.

Just yesterday, John Henry sent out an email to Boston media denouncing any thoughts that Bobby V. would not be with the team come September:

We all share in the responsibility for the success and failure of the Boston Red Sox….

 We are not making a change in manager.

In baseball, managers often get too much credit and too much blame for what happens on the field. That seems to be constant… There is often the thought in organizations, ‘This isn’t working so the manager needs to go.’ But an organization is much more than a field manager. To blame Bobby Valentine for the Red Sox being .500 at this point in the season is simply wrong. A lot has been written about injuries to key players this year. The impact of that on the Sox this year should not be discounted. There has been no lack of effort from our players and we have had a number of them playing hurt. I watch every game, and the effort our players put in night after night is very clear to see.”

Beautiful.

Following up on his surprise visit to the 98.5 The Sports Hub studios late last fall following the most epic collapse in baseball (maybe sports?) history, John Henry continues to show his frustration regarding the coverage of his team.

Somehow Fenway Park has become a non-stop season of Big Brother. The alliances are all fake and no one ever knows what truth is being divulged. Yet, we see and hear everything and think we know what is going on, but we don’t know if we do. Make sense? No, that’s why the masses are angry.

The biggest complaint when it comes to Red Sox ownership is that this club is a moneymaker for them. It’s always been about money. Even when it was about Championships, it was about money. The popular belief is Championships bring money and that is most true.

The media certainly has done a fantastic job of giving the Red Sox a stigma large enough to cause fans to think twice about throwing on that jersey for a random Saturday or put the game on television with friends over. The team has done a lot of this to themselves as well but the media certainly has manipulated it to the level that we have reached.

The conversation has moved on to trying to force the ownership’s hand to sell the team. As long as purchases are moving and beers are flowing, this group is going no where.

The answer is Larry Lucchino. Described by John Henry himself as the man who “runs the Red Sox operations”, Lucchino should be ready to stand up and accept responsibility. There is no success in business if you cannot accept fault and Larry Lucchino has far too many eyes on his mistakes not to admit when he is wrong.

Things have gotten downright absurd on Yawkey Way. For the first time in over a decade, there is more conversation on the suits than the guys on the field and there are no signs of this getting better.

Lucky for fans, there are still two months of baseball left. Plenty of time for another fire at Fenway, hopefully this time it involves personnel rather than the building itself. Though that is a win-win scenario.

It’s been said a million times, specifically when the whole Tim Donaghy scandal came out and the NBA pretended he was the only “bad egg”. Whether the orders come straight from David Sterns’ office or not, the error in judgement on officials has GOT to be fixed.

I am sure when Dr. James A. Naismith created the game of basketball in Springfield back in the day with a hammered up milk carton, he has no idea what his sport was in for.

Last night, I guarantee he was rolling over in his grave.

It is certainly easy to complain about the refereeing when your team loses. I get that. Last night’s examples came well within the Celtics time leading in the game and easily brought to light the issues that the NBA faces and proves why this league is dying a slow death.

Picture source: http://blogs.bettor.com/Doc-Rivers-furious-at-the-technical-fouls-in-Game-1-against-the-Miami-Heat-NBA-News-a158221

The biggest problem the NBA has is that three stooges in clown costumes are making judgement calls for 48 straight minutes. Every aspect of the game is an opinion laced second-by-second problem not much unlike the comments section of any article or YouTube video online.

Last night, there were fouls EVERYWHERE. I personally saw Kevin Garnett literally shove people about 15 times in the open court where there was no call. GREAT! Personally, I love that my team got away with some contact. But that’s because that’s my team and the NBA has taught me to think that way.

Appreciate what you get away with.

But with the foul situation ending up with the Celtics called for 33 fouls to Miami’s 18, it simply wasn’t very balanced.

Paul Pierce is easily the biggest star in the NBA not to get the benefit of the doubt on defense. Having fouled out of Game 7 against the Sixers, Pierce again fouled out last night a couple minutes before the end of regulation. His sixth foul was a straight-up-and-down, holding his ground defensive player on a driving Dwyane Wade. Offensive players should not be allowed to simply throw their bodies wherever they want and get free points out of it.

Mickael Pietrus and Keyon Dooling were also fouled out of the game.

Meanwhile, Wade and Lebron James only picked up two fouls each and only one Heat player hit four fouls and that was Joel Anthony.

The NBA caters to super stars and quickly dismisses them just as easily (see: Celtics, Boston). If your jersey is making money, you are getting calls and your team will see more games because people want to see YOU!

I can’t say that the foul-discrepancy surprised me though. The Celtics were definitely taking swipes at Lebron throughout the game which amounted to his 24 free throws, of which he made 18.

Picture source: http://sportige.com/boston-celtics-lost-the-game-referees-didnt-give-it-to-miami-heat/

Honestly, how is any NBA player supposed to know what will be called, and when? A shove at one point goes uncalled while a gentle swipe at the ball gets a flagrant call elsewhere.

Say/do/look/smell/smile/gesture anything at an official and you get a technical.

You almost have to commend players today for not simply beating the piss out of referees during games. I know my couch generally gets a little bit less cushiony every time the ref makes a call and my fists meet it for a 12-second clip.

Every aspect of the sport of basketball is open to interpretation which is exactly what has made it so easy for David Stern to turn it his way.

Every. Aspect.

Even worse for the NBA, on top of this disaster of a game last night, the NBA Draft Lottery was won by a team with a 13% chance of getting the top pick, who just so happen… to currently be owned by the NBA and are in the process of being sold.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

Sounds like Stern was able to “sweeten the pot” a little bit with that one.

In all honesty, it is no surprise that the NBA is the WWE of professional sports. They have a product that is fast-paced and should be one of the best sports but the league is dying a slow death and praying for players like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Lebron James to keep them exciting year-in and year-out.

Unfortunately for the NBA, it was painfully obvious to everyone watching that game last night that this is not going to get better and the NBA will continue to dictate everything.

Teams have to work around not only their opponent, but a predetermined final result to the game.

That’s a lot to overcome.

Even at the trade deadline, just about anyone would have told you that Danny would make a deal to move at least one of the Big Three. There were extensive conversations of shipping either Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen, or even long-time captain Paul Pierce out of town to plan for the future.

However, here we are fully engulfed in professional basketball still heading into the month of June. Boston thought we’d all be hitting the ice rink at this time of year instead of the hard court.

The Celtics are on a tough streak heading into Game 2. After a couple ugly games to finish out the Philadelphia series (thanks to the Sixer’s inability to hit free-throws mostly), the C’s flopped in the second half of Game 1 and allowed Miami to take off with the game after being tied at halftime.

The good news is that it is always safe to bet on the Celtics after a big loss like that. Most of the team simply did not perform in Game 1 besides Kevin Garnett with his double-double and glimpses of success from Rondo… glimpses.

Ray Allen doesn’t seem to have much left in the tank, but who can blame him. Playing on ankles that are not only as aged and worn as his but with bone spurs requiring surgery immediately as soon as the season ends, Jesus Shuttlesworth is not the player we know him to be. Shooting 60% from the free-throw line and making fans cringe with every three he puts up simply is not the Allen that has made his millions doing just those two things.

Paul Pierce had a lack-luster first game that can literally only get better going forward. The bench has been all but fill-ins throughout the playoffs. And poor Doc Rivers just looks like he wants to get out on the court himself and get it done.

The one thing driving Celtics fans to believe in this team is their pure will. When Paul Pierce fouled out of Game 7 against Philly with the score just about even, Rondo blasted his game to another level and brought Boston to a 10 point win.

While no one in their right mind is picking the Celtics to win this series against the Miami Heat, fans are simply overjoyed to get to watch this team play a few more games together before they almost inevitably get broken up.

It feels weird to even write that as it seems we have said this after just about every of the last three seasons but this season just seems different. The players know what the deal is and it certainly has not escaped the mind of the fans.

When it comes down to it, it seems that pure will should allow the Celtics to pull out at least a game or two in this series. The magical moments that will undoubtedly occur on the parquet within the next week should be nothing less than Oscar-worthy.

No one will look at the ending of this series, no matter what happens, as a failure. For this team to get this far and do what they have done for this long is nothing short of remarkable.

So, Boston.

For once.

For once, lets simply enjoy a team of ours. Watching them battle on the court. Love them for who they are, win or lose. Cheer for them no matter what happens. And let the Big Three era team know that we are appreciative of what they have given us for the past five years.

Win or lose, this team has heart and love for this city and this city needs to reciprocate.

WHAT:                 Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA), a national nonprofit committed to providing all youth and high school athletes a positive, character-building youth sports experience, will host the 1^st Annual Sports Leadership Breakfast, sponsored by Dunkin’ Donuts, on June 26^th at Fenway Park.

The breakfast will feature a panel discussion with Celtics Coach Doc Rivers and Red Sox Manager Bobby Valentine on the secrets of excellent coaching. They will be joined by distinguished fellow panelists Harvard Men’s Basketball Coach Tommy Amaker, Boston College Men’s Hockey Coach Jerry York and PCA Founder Jim Thompson. The panel will share personal experiences and explore the role of coaches as key educators capable of imparting critical life lessons and shaping young athletes’ futures.

WHO:                  

Boston Celtics Coach Doc Rivers

Boston Red Sox Manager Bobby Valentine

Harvard Men’s Basketball Coach Tommy Amaker

Boston College Men’s Hockey Coach Jerry York

Positive Coaching Alliance Founder Jim Thompson

Moderators: Michael Holley and Glenn Ordway, hosts of “The Big Show” on WEEI 93.7 FM/850 AM          

WHEN:                 7:30 – 9 a.m., Tuesday, June 26th

WHERE:            

TICKETS:               VIP tables for seven can be purchased for $10,000; Tables of eight are available for $5,000 and half tables of four for $2,500. VIP tables include the opportunity to sit with one of the panelists.

Please email andy_crossley@positivecoach.org or call 339-237-8923 for reservations.

About the Positive Coaching Alliance

Founded as a non-profit within the Stanford University Athletic Department in 1998, Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) is committed to providing all youth and high school athletes a positive, character-building youth sports experience. To that end, PCA has conducted more than 10,000 live group workshops nationwide for more than 675,000 youth and high school sports coaches, parents, student-athletes and school/organizational leaders. Through workshops and companion online courses, PCA has impacted more than 4.5 million youth.
PCA’s partnership network includes more than 1,700 youth sports organizations, cities and schools. In 2012, PCA will conduct roughly 1,200 live, group workshops across the U.S., while assisting tens of thousands of other individuals via online courses at www.PositiveCoach.org.

PCA workshops and courses strive to establish these prevailing models in youth and high school sports:

• ·         The Double-Goal Coach^®, whose first goal is winning, and whose second, more-important goal is teaching life lessons through sports
• ·         The Second-Goal Parent^®, who concentrates on life lessons, while letting coaches and athletes focus on competing
• ·         The Triple-Impact Competitor^®, who strives to impact sport on three levels by improving oneself, teammates and the game as a whole.

PCA has the support of elite coaches and athletes on a National Advisory Board, including National Spokesperson and 11-time NBA Champion Coach Phil Jackson.

For more information on the Positive Coaching Alliance, Boston Chapter please visithttp://www.boston.positivecoach.org/.

After months of soul searching, it seems the answer is clear.

Since September of 2011, we have all become privy to A LOT of information regarding the Local 9 and everyone who has ever worked for the team. Things became painfully obvious that these players were not role models, they are not to be revered as the Kings of Boston, and no matter what the Fenway centerfield sign says the number of attendees to the game is, fans are proving this to the team daily.

The Red Sox, the Boston Red Sox, used to be a team. Period. Nothing more to that sentence.

When there was a slump, it was a team effort. The team wasn’t hitting, the pitchers were missing their marks, etc. No one assigned blame to specific names for the most part.

Since “The Collapse”, this team has become a lot of finger-pointing, a lot of “he did it” or “who did it?”.

When the team fell apart, it was Josh Beckett, John Lackey, and Jon Lester eating chicken and swigging beers in the clubhouse. It was Tito Francona popping pills in a hotel room before coming to work.

This year there is no unity on the Red Sox. It is painfully clear everyone is playing in the historic jersey for the paycheck coming in each week. Players don’t seem to enjoy each other for the most part, the players don’t like the manager, the manager is treading lightly so as not to open himself up for a mutiny, the suits don’t care about any of them.

There has been a ton of talk about why exactly Bobby Valentine was ever brought to Boston. It seems the thought was that he would provide some flair and take the heat off of the players a bit, which he hasn’t, and I don’t blame him.

Adrian Gonzalez is starting to be picked apart for not doing a damn thing when a leader is needed on or off of the field. This isn’t San Diego amigo and for the paycheck you are getting, you better start to figure out how things work in Boston.

Josh Beckett continues to do simply stupid things. “My thumb hurts, I am going to my own doctors” ended up being nothing but a simple complaint with no merit. Now his lat (“the whole lat”) is the problem but he is out playing golf two days before he skips his start due to that injury. But hey, his 2-3 record with a 4.45 ERA should hold his spot in the lineup, right?

Will Middlebrooks was called up while Kevin Youkilis hit the DL and in six games the kid has batted .346 with three homers and 9 RBI. Youkilis, in the 18 games he played has hit .219 with two homers and 9 RBI. Yet, Middlebrooks is already being told that when Youk returns, he gets his spot back automatically.

If you look at the Red Sox stats so far for the season, only four players are hitting better than .300, David Ortiz, Ryan Sweeney, Middlebrooks, and Dustin Pedroia.

Is it a case of players getting fat and happy with their long, overpaid contracts? Most likely. Papi usually seems to be exponentially better in a contract season and this continues to ring true in 2012 with his team leading seven homers and 23 RBI.

It is time the Red Sox cut ties with the dead weight on this team. Changing things up and finally admitting that this is what they are doing is exactly what this team needs to do. If they simply trade players like they did with Marco Scutaro in the offseason and call it a salary dump, fans won’t get it. If you trade away the cancerous parts of your organization, which will undoubtedly cost them a lot of money and continue the trend of Boston paying for players to play against them, and call it that, real baseball fans will understand.

This 2012 Red Sox team issue goes much deeper than the sport and the city. This team is absolutely UNLIKABLE and the fact that they are 12-18 with only four wins at home out of 14 tries only pushes for closure.

Ben Cherington needs to put the ax blade to the grinder and get to work and tell the fans and media what he is doing. Put some fear in the hearts of the team, if they even care.

It’s time to cut off the fat and gut the gutless.

It’s time for a new era in Boston baseball.

In just about any series that gets to a Game 6, things always seem to be in favor of the team that has the 3-2 advantage. Winning back-to-back (or back-to-back-to-back for the Hawks who were down 3-1) crucial games for the team down 3-2 just seems an almost impossible accomplishment.

The Celtics are hoping to holy hell that this rings true tonight.

To most Boston fans and those in Vegas, Game 5 was somehow favored to the Hawks following the drudging the C’s put on Atlanta in Boston in Game 4. Vegas had Boston GETTING 1.5 points, which worked out for the Green (pun intended) with the Celtics losing Game 5 by a single point in a crazy final 10 seconds.  If you decide to bet on the Celtics in Game 6, you better believe home court will be a factor.

With each player in the lineup having shown glimpses of greatness, most of the talking heads of the NBA media have started to put Boston in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Heat already.

There is no doubt tonight will be a huge test for both the Celtics and Hawks. Game 6 will either clinch the series for Boston and give them a few days to rest before the next series or it will give Atlanta a massive sway of the momentum heading back to Atlanta for Game 7, and no one can like those odds for Boston.

We can only hope that the Big 4 (3.5? What are we calling them these days?) realize the dire need to win tonight’s game and put it all on the floor at home with a raucous crowd and get one win closer to raising Banner 18.