Terry Pluto’s Classic Commentary. A Cow Reponds.
Yet, they could have won . . . only they didn’t.
And as a Cleveland fan, that probably doesn’t surprise you.
Terry…here’s a thought. Go get some of your religious zealot church friends to unzip me and smoke my dong. The negativity you bring to this is more palpable than your insistence that the Holy Spirit is in you. Maybe it’s not the Holy Spirit, Terry. Maybe it’s a bug up your ass.
81% of game 7’s go to the home team. Most of them are like game 7 of the 1992 Cavs Boston series. Remember THAT one, Terry? We WON 122-104. It was Larry Bird’s last game. And he was crushed like a bug IN CLEVELAND. Certainly, your tired old ass was around in 1992. Did you forget, or are you trying to perpetuate a negative stereotype about Cleveland sports.
We NEVER win big ones, do we, Terry? Sandy Alomar never hit a HR off Rivera. Tony Pena’s shot was a mirage. There was no Miracle in Richfield, except the time you went to a revivalist tent show there.
History was against the Cavs. Your favorite guy, Z, failed to show up. Two men tried to carry the weight of 7. Delonte may not be great, but he didn’t lay down. And the always questioned LeBron played his guts out (no Butch Davis references, please).
You may be instructed by Jehovah to cast this game in a negative light, but the Cavs made this a real game with defense and the work of 4 guys (2 of whom don’t start). The truth? The Cavs are not that good. They play team defense, and it took a huge Paul Pierce game for the 60 million dollar free agent Celts to beat the Cleveland Wallys. The big 3 were down to one. Garnett scored but 13, all but shut down by an old Ben Wallace. Ray Allen was Sczerbi-esque. It took a 38 year old to have a big game off the bench to make up for the little 2.
Put 60 million in free agents with LeBron, and see what happens, dork. Free up our cap space and give me Dwayne Wade or CP3.
Better yet…simply stop writing about Cleveland sports. Go away. You’ve lost objectivity when you resort to the primitive curse theme. You have succumbed to spiritual sports burnout. You no longer believe the outcome is ahead of us. You have accepted that the outcome is preordained.
I, for one, believe better days are ahead. And so does LeBron. Ask him about losing, and he won’t know nearly as much as you pretend to.
Analyze the game. Understand why we lost. Make appropriate changes. Somebody HAS to win the title, and it is usually the team that collects the players that are consistent and play together. See the difference between THESE Lakers and previous years. Or the Hornets. Remember that it’s a 7-8 man team game. Remember that smart moves are rewarded with victory, and 6th round selections of DeSagana Diop result in dead end development and potentially years of woe.
It isn’t in our stars, Terry. It is in ourselves. Without a true PG, and younger more vital center, this team cannot get to the highest level. These issues are correctible, not ordained.
Unless you’ve become a lazy sportswriter who has lost the work ethic to write a real journalistic piece.
Moo
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Comment by: Zen
Posted on May 19th, 2008 at 10:05 amAs a columnist, shouldn’t Terry Pluto show greater knowledge of the history of the Boston-Cleveland sports rivalry? From 1948 through 1998, Cleveland dominated in head-to-head matchups. The Lou Boudreau Indians won the one-game playoff against the Ted Williams Red Sox in 1948. In 1992, The Cavaliers destroyed the Celtics in Larry Bird’s final game, a Round 2 Game 7 match-up in Cleveland. In 1993, Belichick out-coached his mentor Bill Parcells, as the Browns eliminated the Patriots in the first round of the NFL Playoffs. In both 1995 and 1998, the Indians eliminated the Red Sox in dramatic fashion (remember the Tony Pena game?)
After 50 years of head-to-head Cleveland dominance, the tide finally started to turn Boston’s way. In 1999, Pedro Martinez submitted one of the best playoff pitching performances in history, as the Red Sox climbed out of a 2-0 hole to eliminate the Indians and move onto the ALCS. In 2007, the Red Sox similarly climbed out of a 3-1 hole to eliminate the Indians en route to their second World Series Championship in four years. And now in 2008, a vastly superior Celtics team (on paper) weathered a valiant effort by the undermanned Cavaliers, eliminating Cleveland in 7 games, off a career-defining clutch superstar performance by Paul Pierce.
Cleveland won for 50 years. Boston has won for less than 10 years (and often by razor thin margins.) Everything is cyclical in sports. At some point - perhaps even this baseball season - Cleveland will start winning these high profile matchups against Boston. I wouldn’t be surprised if the red hot Indians avenge their bitter ALCS defeat of last year by finishing the job against the Red Sox this year. There’s also a reasonable possibility that the Browns could surprise the Patriots in the NFL playoffs. The post-2004 Patriots are much like the post-2001 Yankees. Good enough to win the division every year, not young enough or hungry enough to win a championship.
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