Christmas Blues and Celtic Green, and Jinxes

Christmas for me has started last thursday night when I arrived at the airport and went straight to my ateneo law school class christmas party. It was great. I went home at 7 am and intoxicated! It was great seeing old friends again. It was a perfect kick-off to a busy, fattening, and widly intoxicating holiday season.

Speaking of the Holidays, it seems that the Boston Celtics have a lot of reasons to have a good christmas! They are on top of the world with a 21-3 record and experts are waiting if they can reach the 70 win mark that only the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls have done. The Celtics are impressive this first quarter of the year. It is good if they can maintain it. But Celtic pride will not only have to exorcise 20 years of futility but the developing best record curse as well. Since 2001, only 1 team with the best record overall has ended up going to the NBA finals and won it all. That was the 2003 San Antonio Spurs. The rest have fallen in the playoffs including one who was at the losing end of the greatest upset in NBA history. Let's take a brief look at those teams who were hyped up to win it all but fell at the wayside.

1. 2001 San Antonio Spurs

2 years removed from winning their first championship, the Spurs with a healthy Tim Duncan, a consistent David Robinson, and Derek Anderson being a welcome addition to a veteran cast grabbed the best record with another monstrous second half of the season winning 35 of their last 44 games. Finishing with a 58-24 record, they looked to steamroll in the playoffs. They did just that. They eliminated Minnesota in four and disposed the Dallas Mavericks in five. A rematch of the 1999 playoffs was set when the Spurs faced the Laker juggernaut. What should have been a classic turned out to be a dud as the Spurs were swept out by the Lakers.

2.Sacramento Kings

With a high powered offense scoring at about a 105 points per game, winning streaks of 12 and 11, a 61-win season, and a 2-1 lead at the Western Conference finals against the Lakers should mean that the title is already yours at the taking, But Horry, Kobe, and Shaq had other ideas. The Lakers managed to take everything that the Kings gave and dished it out plus a few miracle shots here and there enroute to a 3rd straight finals appearance and a 3-peat.

3. 2004 Indiana Pacers

Size, depth, a combination of youth and experience, defense, balance, the Pacers have it all except sanity. The 61 win Pacers fell down to the equally tough yet more composed Detroit Pistons who were on their way to the NBA championship.

4. 2005 Phoenix Suns

The Suns had the MVP, a high powered offense and a lot of excitement. One big problem, they haven't found a way to stop Duncan. A problem they still have to contend with.

5. 2006 Detroit Pistons,

The motto of the Pistons is "going to work every night" It seemed that at that time though, the Pistons slept in the playoffs. They got blown up by 23 points one game against the Bucks, they "allowed" King James and the Cavs to take a 3-2 lead in the semis and by the time they faced the Heat in the ECF, they looked lost and the Heat won in 6 en route to the championship.

6. 2007 Dallas Mavericks

Need I say more? The highlight for me was not any Baron Davis dunk, or a Stephen Jackson 3 but Kate Hudson cheering in the sidelines! Whatta goddess!!!!!!