In the Eastern Conference, the second seed Boston Celtics (62-20) take on the seventh seed Chicago Bulls (41-41). In their three-game regular-season series, the Celtics were victorious twice. There is concern as Boston lost to Chicago in the final match-up by a score of 121-127. But Boston has been on a roll, winning eight of their last 10, while Chicago has gone 7-3 over the last 10 games.
I woke up this morning to Breaking News alerts on the two major sports news sites I normally ready, and each one was a different story. One was wildly exciting, and the other was a confirmation of a gut feeling:
Kevin Garnett is being held out of action until the playoffs. The official story is that there is no point in playing him in two totally meaningless games, but I’m not buying it. Wouldn’t you want to have a chance to test your knee and your fitness before the games got intense? Wouldn’t you want to ease back into action gradually? I sense that there is more to this story than we are hearing, and that makes me a bit uneasy.
Jay Cutler is the biggest baby I have ever seen. The latest news on the Broncos’ QB front is that the team has given up and is going to trade their pivot before the draft. That news has apparently been confirmed by owner Pat Bowlen as well, so it is past the point of just being a rumor. The impetus for this latest move is that apparently neither Bowlen nor coach Josh McDaniels has apparently been able to get Cutler to return a phone call for the last 10 days. Seriously? Not returning phone calls is what you do when you are in grade school and you are having a fight with your friend. It’s not what you do when you are a highly paid and well respected professional who has yet to prove that they can actually do their job – lead the team to playoff success. I don’t think that there is a quarterback in the league that could justify this kind of immature, prima donna behaviour, but at the very least you should have to have a winning record before you do it. Teams will line up for Cutler, and he’s probably an upgrade for at least half the teams in the league, but this whole episode has convinced me that Cutler doesn’t have what it takes to go all the way. I mean, can you imagine Tom Brady not returning Robert Kraft’s calls? Or Peyton Manning screening out Tony Dungy? Ridiculous.
