2011 NBA Season: A Year In Review

It’s hard to believe that a year has gone by since I was writing about the Boston Celtics vs. Los Angeles Lakers NBA Finals.

In terms of 365 days of interest, this was the most engaging NBA season of all time.

Instead of late October, this year’s NBA season began when the buzzer sounded on Game 7 in Los Angeles. We had just witnessed one of the hardest fought NBA Finals of all time and the storylines were already building for Kobe Bryant’s quest for ring number six, since Phil Jackson was returning and Pau Gasol was emerging as one of the best power forwards in the game.

On the other side, the Boston Celtics had fought the Lakers down to the final minute and had done so on the road, without Kendrick Perkins. Although the Celtics looked old, there was a sense that these two historic rivals would meet again in 2011 for essentially Game 3—the rubber-match finale—of their NBA Finals matchups.

But then the NBA landscape experienced a seismic change. Rumors were swirling around that LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire and Joe Johnson were having a secret meeting, a “player’s summit” of sorts, that involved discussions of where they would sign in the off-season. Suddenly, teams like the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers didn’t seem like the favorites, but instead teams that had enough money to sign these players like the Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat and New York Knicks. Even lowly teams like the New Jersey Nets and Los Angeles Clippers were now in the conversation to become championship caliber. They were all just one signature away.

The speculation of what was going to happen next swirled around for the entire month of June. On July 1, the free agent window opened up, and the rumors really started to speed up.

While there was definite interest in where Dwyane Wade and Amare Stoudemire would go, the summer was all about LeBron, and rightfully so, no player changes a franchise as quickly and effectively as LeBron James.

So throughout the course of a week, six different teams came to meet with LeBron James in his home. The Chicago Bulls said, “Hey, you can play with Derrick Rose, Luol Deng, Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson, and we still have leftover money to bring in another guy.” The Clippers said, “We have Eric Gordon, Blake Griffin, Baron Davis and Chris Kaman, throw you into that starting five and we are the new main attraction in Los Angeles.” New York said, “Hey, c’mon, it’s New York! You’ll be rich, famous and Mike D’Antoni’s offense will get you like 60 points per game,” and the New Jersey Nets made the, “You will become a billionaire LeBron” approach.

Then came Pat Riley of Miami. We will never know what was said in that room, but apparently Riley put all his championship rings out on the table and asked LeBron to try one on. He made the case to LeBron, that in Miami, he would not win just a championship ring, but instead become the leader of a dynasty. I feel like after 30 minutes of a Riley ego-trip speech, LeBron cut him off and said, “Dude, relax, me, Dwyane and CB decided this four years ago, I’m just pretending like I’m hearing all the options out fairly.”

The final group was Cleveland. The Cavaliers situation had extended past the NBA world and was now rocking the lives of every Michigan State Spartans fan this side of East Lansing (have no idea if that is the right usage of ‘this side of’, but does anyone know how to use that effectively in a sentence?)

For a few fearful days, Spartans fans held their breath as Tom Izzo hopped on planes and toured around Cleveland. Fortunately, Izzo was never able to get a hold of LeBron. When it suddenly became clear that LeBron was probably not ending up in Cleveland, Dan Gilbert had no sales pitch left.

Well, ok, hear me out here. I know you are at god status in East Lansing and are widely considered to be one of the best college basketball coaches living today and have a student section named after you and are completely happy and satisfied with your current life, but, well, I mean we have Mo Williams and well, JJ Hickson is pretty good and Ohio is a slight step up from Michigan and…PLEASE TAKE THE JOB! PLEEAASEE!

What was Cleveland going to offer LeBron James? They had so much money tied up in salaries like Antwan Jamison that they really couldn’t just go out and sign another guy. Also, how are they going to pull off trades? Do you think any general manager in the Eastern Conference, or really the NBA for that matter, would say, “Oh sure, let me give you the missing piece you need to make LeBron’s team unstoppable, we’ll get that to you right away! Did you want to give him my wife and daughter too?”

The two things Cleveland had going for them were the maximum contract and the loyalty argument. In Cleveland, LeBron could have signed the biggest contract out of any of the other places and become the highest paid player in the league. The problem with this, is LeBron had options in New York and New Jersey that would have ended up with him making 10x more off the court than he did on it. At least.

So then it was down to the loyalty argument that carried through not only until The Decision, but for the rest of the year, maybe the rest of his career. LeBron was lovable in Cleveland, he was electrifying to watch, he was the hometown kid, he was the savior to a struggling sports city, how could he leave all of that?

When LeBron began talking about how his mom helped him make the decision during The Decision, it seemed like this story was going to end with LeBron saying, “Cleveland is my home. I’m staying a Cavalier.”

As angry as Cleveland, and a lot of the rest of us became when he said he was going to Miami, now seems somewhat irrational. In New York, he would team up with Amare Stoudemire who had question marks surrounding his knees. In New Jersey he would be in a Cleveland 2.0 situation. In Los Angeles, he’d be a sideshow to the Lakers. In Cleveland, he would watch the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers battle for the next couple years and then be on the losing side of battles against the Chicago Bulls and this new Miami Heat team with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

To win championships, LeBron’s only two real options were Chicago and Miami. While both situations would have been championship caliber, LeBron chose to team up with his close friends, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Other than Chris Paul and his high school buddies, Wade may be LeBron’s best friend in not just his basketball world, but his off the court life too. LeBron probably never could have imagined how hated he would become by choosing Miami, but how much easier is it to carry that burden when you have your closest friends to share it with.

The chaos over The Decision followed by the Celebration seemed to last the entire month of July. All until Kevin Durant stole our attention.

Kevin Durant’s run through the FIBA World Championships not only gave us a new superstar to cheer for, but he also showed he was ready to be a top guy in the NBA. He was carrying this team on his back, and even though the international competition might not be the same as an NBA game, Durant suddenly looked like a Kobe Bryant figure rather than just that young kid who scores a lot.

The timing could not have been better for Durant’s rise. With 90 percent of NBA fans hating LeBron James and hating this new Heat team, Durant became a source of hope that maybe the Heat wouldn’t be the new dynasty. He was praised for his humility, his silent contract extension and his loyalty to his teammates. With Russell Westbrook also emerging, along with the memory of the Thunder pushing the Lakers six games, there was legitimate hope that the Thunder could be a top team in the league.

So now it’s September. Shaq is in Boston, Carlos Boozer is in Chicago, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony hinted at joining Amare Stoudemire in New York. Suddenly, there’s so much anticipation building for the 2011 regular season, that we began paying attention to the pre-season. Honestly, I didn’t recall the NBA even having a pre-season until this year.

The end of October comes and we have the Boston Celtics, the old Big Three, going up against the Miami Heat, the new Big Three in game one of the regular season. The Celtics win! Even though it was just one game, and Dwyane Wade was not back to full strength, there was a sense of hope that the Heat would not be this 72 win dynasty after all, and that a team like the Boston Celtics was still the team to beat out East.

This belief became even stronger as the Heat started out 9-8 and the Celtics had another early season run. Now that the Heat would have to go 64-1 the rest of the way to surpass the Chicago Bulls NBA record for wins, there became a bit of irrational hope that maybe the Heat would only be an average team and that LeBron would be ringless once again.

This changed quickly. The Heat got hot and rattled off 20 of their next 21 or whatever the streak was. The LeBron return home to Cleveland was one of the most anticipated games I can ever remember, playoffs included, and in the end, James put on an absolute show.

The Heat was carrying the bulk of attention for the regular season, but elsewhere, other teams and other players were grabbing headlines too. The San Antonio Spurs were suddenly good again, the Dallas Mavericks were not far behind, Derrick Rose and Kevin Durant were both showing why they are the best young players in the league and quietly, LaMarcus Aldridge was putting up monster nights, carrying a hobbled Trailblazers team into the playoffs. Carmelo Anthony trade rumors were driving us crazy and Chris Paul re-emerged as the point guard we once knew, and had even led his batch of New Orleans Hornets to an early undefeated stretch.

However, nothing became more engaging than Blake Griffin hilights. It seemed like every other night, Sportscenter’s Top 10 would end with Griffin flying over people, posterizing big men like Timofey Mozgov and making the casual fan want to tune into a Clippers game.

In an 82 game season, it’s easy to lose interest and wait until the playoffs begin, but 2011 gave us non-stop action and storylines all the way up to the All-Star break. In the All-Star game we saw Blake Griffin jump over a car, Kobe Bryant dominate, stripping the ball from Dwyane Wade multiple times and Kevin Durant going FIBA 2010 down the stretch. After the game, we saw Carmelo Anthony get traded for almost the entire New York Knicks starting lineup, Deron Williams mysteriously slip over to New Jersey and Dwight Howard Los Angeles Lakers rumors going from sheer madness to, “Wait, this might happen?”

One of the biggest All-Star break trades was also the most surprising. Kendrick Perkins was sent to Oklahoma City, and Boston Celtics’ title hopes seemed to shrink as the Thunder’s now became legitimate.

The second half of the season belonged to the Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers and the surprise Denver Nuggets. As elder teams like the San Antonio Spurs and Boston Celtics were finally slowing down, the Chicago Bulls began putting on a run taking them from nice little story to best record in the league. The Lakers seemed to once again turn on the switch, nearly climbing their way to the top seed out West, but then slumped the final five or six games raising a whole set of question marks. Even though the Nuggets never seemed like legitimate championship contenders, they were fun to watch and to see them win as the Knicks struggled was another surprising story.

Eighty-two games have never gone faster. The playoff seedings were set and it seemed like these were the consensus contenders:

Miami Heat- They have the Big Three

Los Angeles Lakers- They always turn on the switch

Boston Celtics- They tanked the second half of the season last year and ended up fine

Chicago Bulls- They have the best record in the league and the MVP

Oklahoma City Thunder- They needed a big man presence last year to beat L.A. Now they have it in Perkins.

There was another grouping of the San Antonio Spurs and Orlando Magic, who were given some consideration, but not necessarily considered contenders.

The one top four seed in both conferences not being given a chance was the Dallas Mavericks. The Mavericks had looked like the best team in the league at times throughout the season, but they also had bad stretches and were missing Caron Butler to a season ending injury. On top of that, they were matched up against the Portland Trailblazers, who were starting to get healthy and had added Gerald Wallace.

This theory is relatively new in the making, but I’m starting to wonder if once a team becomes the trendy upset pick, if that in turn results in the better record team going on a run. I don’t really have any evidence besides the Mavericks to support this claim, but I feel like there might be something to it.

When so many people were picking the Trailblazers to upset the Mavericks, to the point when the Mavericks now almost seemed like the underdog, I began feeling both sympathetic for the Mavs and also confident they would beat the Trailblazers. The problem was, I saw there being no way that they were going to get past the Lakers, so considering them as an NBA Champion contender was never really on my radar.

Oh how I was wrong. On two opposite sides of the bracket, the Mavericks and Miami Heat have put on nearly identical, dominant runs. In the first round, the Heat took care of the scrappy Philadelphia 76ers in five games and the Mavericks had a more difficult Portland team on the ropes in Game 4, only to watch Brandon Roy suddenly transform into the Brandon Roy of old, igniting a spectacular comeback. The Mavericks would then win Game 5 and 6 and head off to Los Angeles.

On one side of the bracket, Miami was playing the defending Eastern Conference Champions, on the other Dallas was playing the defending Western and NBA Champions. Both put on an impressive show, Miami winning in 5 and Dallas sweeping the Lakers. After that, both went up against young, scrappy teams, and both schooled their younger opponents down the stretch winning in identical 5 game sets.

The 2011 NBA Playoffs only featured one 7 game series, but every series seemed to be so hard fought. From the start out West, the Grizzlies stunned the Spurs in round one, the Hornets pushed the Lakers 6 games with Chris Paul playing like the best point guard in the league and the Trailblazers/Mavericks series went back and forth. In the East, the Pacers played the Bulls tough every game, the Celtics/Knicks first two games were down to the wire and the Atlanta Hawks upset the Magic.

The Thunder vs. Grizzlies was probably the most entertaining series of the playoffs, but five game series like the Bulls/Heat, Heat/Celtics and Mavs/Thunder all seemed to come down to the wire in almost every game.

As I have always said, the NBA Playoffs are better than March Madness because the two best teams always square off in the Finals. We may have expected this to be Los Angeles vs. Miami or maybe L.A./Boston round three, but there is no question these are the two best teams in the NBA. Both are 12-3 in the playoffs, both have beaten elite teams, not just four out of seven, but often doing it in five games or less. The MVP of the Western Playoffs has been Dirk Nowitzki and the MVP of the Eastern Playoffs has been LeBron James.

The players matched up on the floor next week are not just current greats, but all time greats. Jason Kidd, Dirk Nowitzki, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are all guaranteed first ballot hall-of-famers. While Kidd is behind names like Magic Johnson and John Stockton and Wade behind names like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, players they will never surpass, LeBron and Dirk are still capable of climbing higher and higher in the Top 10 of All-Time, at any position conversations.

Guys like Shawn Marion, Chris Bosh, Tyson Chandler and Mike Bibby, who used to be first or second options at times in their careers, are now third, fourth and fifth. The benches include Jason Terry, Mike Miller, JJ Barea, Udonis Haslem and Peja Stojakovic, who have all had solid seasons in their NBA careers.

This may not have been the NBA Finals we expected when the season started 350 some odd days ago, but make no mistake, these are the two best teams in the league squaring off.

This time, I think the winner will need more than five games to do it.

Oklahoma City Thunder: Dead Like a June Bug

Having visitors in New York City is an interesting situation.

It’s not like Midland. I can’t show someone all the major sights within a day.

This is the Tridge, this is Pizza Sam’s and this is the mall. Did you want to go see a movie tonight or go back to the Tridge?

Nor do you have the same type of nostalgic tour guide feeling. Instead, you transform into a salesman, treating your visitor as a potential business client. In Midland, I’m making the case for why this was the greatest town in the world to grow up in, whereas New York, I become Pete Campbell from Mad Men.

I failed miserably with my first guest.

Jon Oldham, my roommate from Freshman and Sophomore year, came out to visit during Hope College’s spring break. I decided it would be a good idea to take him to the St. Patrick’s Day parade. I had no idea that it would be 20,000 screaming high school students—each equipped with Gatorade bottles filled with vodka and juice—who never once thought their, “Ole! Ole! Ole! Ole!” chants ever got old.

When you’re a high school junior or senior, you think it’s ridiculous that the drinking age is 21. When you’re 21, and look at a high school junior or senior on St. Patty’s Day, you suddenly think the age should be pushed back to 35.

The walk back to the apartment, well, let me put it this way, imagine one of those Chinese videos with someone cramming 200 people onto a bus. Imagine you are the last person crammed in, but need to get back to your friend who’s sitting in the furthest seat. That was the equivalent of our walk down 44th street trying to escape the mess of Fifth Avenue.

Was it fun? See here’s the problem. Our instinct when we see a massive crowd is to take a picture message and triumphantly send it back to all of our friends. When they reply, “Wow! That looks incredible, you’re so lucky to be in New York City for St. Patrick’s Day!” you can’t be the guy that responds, “Actually, it’s miserable, I’m sweaty, I just watched a 16-year-old boy squeeze a girl’s butt then hide back away in the crowd, and the ‘Ole!’ chant has just started for the 400th time.”

We assume that events like Mardi Gras or New Year’s Eve in Times Square are amazing, but at the same time, we would never go out of our way to be involved in a Chinese bus cram.

On Jon’s final day, the streets may have been emptier, but the result was even more of a disaster. Our morning walk to the subway, which was only maybe the equivalent to the length of a football field, started out on a bad note with the rain coming down and thunder crackling. Neither of us had an umbrella, and both of us had on our glasses, which become utterly useless in the rain.

The first sight was an ambulance and two cop cars in the street. A Land Rover was stopped in the middle of the road and lying down in front of the massive vehicle was a lady on her back, in a position that best resembled a dead June bug. Was she dead? No, but she seemed to prefer to answer the police man’s questions while lying down on her back.

We crossed the street and made our way into Brooklyn Bagel. Jon was wheeling along his suitcase and as he made a turn, somehow a 70-year-old Asian lady walking behind us miscalculated her steps, thus tripping over one of the wheels and falling slowly to the ground.

She lay on the ground looking up at the sky with a strange look of terror in her eyes. I helped her up, she continued along and Jon looked at me with a, “Get me the hell out of here” expression on his face.

Of course, when we hopped on the N train, there was a “delay” due to a problem with the tracks ahead. All I could picture was June bug lady lying in the middle with the conductor screaming at her to get a move on.

Eventually, Jon was able to leave the city, and honestly, it may take him 20 years to ever even consider coming back.

So needless to say, I felt a sense of pressure when my friend Nick visited earlier this week. I wanted to show him that this city was not complete chaos and there were more sights to see than ladies falling to the ground.

My first spot was Pete’s Tavern, the oldest bar in all of Manhattan. Not many bars in this country can say they were established in 1864 and have been running non-stop ever since. During prohibition, Pete’s Tavern disguised itself as a flower shop, and continued to quench the thirst of New Yorkers.

We had a little trouble finding the location, but once we did, I was very pleased with how everything looked. The walls were covered in pictures of famous people standing next to the owner, and the bar looked like one you would find in an Old Western movie’s saloon scene. Everything was dimly lit and a couple mounted barrels labeled “Pete’s Tavern, 1864” were placed over the doorway.

Our waiter looked considerably nervous. He took our order (both of us ordered hamburgers and the house ale) and as we handed him the menus he said, “Sorry, I’m new, I just wanted to check and make sure I got everything right.” The kid flipped through the menu’s pages and said, “I know your burgers come with a salad (not at all true), but I’m seeing if they come with fries too (actually true).”

At that point, I wish Nick and I would have seized the moment and said something like, “Yeah, it comes with a complementary order of buffalo wings and a dessert,” but neither of us had the lack of heart to pull it off.

After we devoured our burgers with fries, and each of us took down two reasonably sized house ales, the waiter came back with the bill. Surprisingly, the combined total was $52, which for New York, is a really low price for dinner and two beers. We asked to split the bill and handed the waiter our cards. When he came back with our cards and receipts, he was starting to gain a little bit of confidence. With a slight sense of semi-bravado he said to us, “Ok guys, just sign here and enjoy your night.”

As he began walking away, I looked at the table, then—hating to kill his momentum—said, “Wait, do you have a pen?”

Confidence was shaken. Flustered now, he reached into his waiter’s belt thing and placed a pen onto the table. He knew he had just blown the lead he had built.

Nick and I began discussing the right tip to give him. At $52, a 15 percent tip comes out right around $8, which makes the total an even $60. Perfect. The waiter did not do a bad job and it’d be nice to put down a few extra bills of encouragement for the young guy, but with the “I know it comes with a salad” false hope he gave us and the invisible pen blunder, we ultimately decided $8 was the right amount to say, “Hey man, you did a good job, but there’s still some room for improvement.”

I wrote down the tip, signed my name and we made our way out to the street.

“Excuse me!” the waiter’s supervisor said running after us with a receipt in hand. Both of us expected her to scold us for the $8 tip.

“Would it really have killed ya to make it an even $10?!”

But instead, she simply was asking for Nick to sign his copy of the receipt.

We continued on with our night going to a comedy show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. Our tickets were $5 a piece, and the show consisted of two sketch comedy groups. The first group was not very good, but the second group had the whole room laughing for almost the entire time. All until their final sketch.

In the final sketch, one couple and another guy were sitting in chairs awaiting a guest. The couple begins explaining to the guy that he’ll absolutely love the girl who’s coming to join them for dinner. She’s funny, nice, but she does have a minor problem.

“She never stops screaming,” the wife explains.

Nick and I look at each other fearing that this description means exactly what it seemingly means. Sure enough, out comes the girl screaming as loud as she can, over, and over and over again. Thirty seconds in and I wished I was back in the St. Patty’s Day chaos hearing the repeated ‘Ole!’ chants.

After the show, we went back to the apartment building and turned on Game 4 of the Dallas Mavericks vs. Oklahoma City Thunder series. The Thunder had the lead and were looking absolutely dominant. When the lead hit 15 points with five minutes left to go, I asked Nick if he wanted to go out and get a $1 slice of Two Bros Pizza.

After eating the pizza, and seeing a man being arrested, we made our way over to Times Square. I figured it was late enough, and since it was only a Monday, the area would not be very crowded.

As we’re walking down the street, we look over at one of the giant screens and see the Mavericks have the lead over the Thunder in overtime.

Wait… what???

The screen flips over to highlights from The View and Dancing With The Stars, as if the three video clips are of equal importance. We quickly scramble over to the outside of some sporting goods store and watch the screen inside.

Dallas is going to win this game. How in the world did this happen?

Watching the game with us was a French man, whose NBA knowledge seemed to end at 1995.

“Eh, who iz this Oklahoma team?” asks Frenchman.

“They used to be the Seattle Supersonics, but now play in Oklahoma City,” I replied.

“So, ze Seattle, they have no more team?”

“Yeah, it happened a couple years ago.”

-Pause-

“I loved Michael Jordan,” the Frenchman said as if Jordan used to play for the Supersonics. “I watched him in eh, 1995, he was very good. So, iz Seattle close to the Oklahoma?”

“Yeah, it’s about 15 hours,” I said confidently even though a Mapquest search later on would show me I had undersold the time by about 15 hours.

Nick left the next day and I spent the first part of work reading about what happened to the Thunder down the stretch of Game 4. Two nights later, I saw the Thunder collapse again, not nearly the same level of a collapse, but they still had that game in their hands before blowing it in the last two minutes.

All I could relate the Thunder’s late game mistakes to were the waiter at Pete Tavern’s late dinner mistake with the forgotten pen and the comedy group’s choice of ending an otherwise hilarious 30 minutes with a screaming lady. For the waiter, he was young and inexperienced and will probably never make that mistake again. For the comedy group, they will hopefully learn in the future to end on their best sketch, rather than leaving the most lasting memory as their worst idea.

The Thunder will learn from this series. Against Denver, they learned how to win a series against a talented team. Against the Memphis Grizzlies, they learned how to close out a tough opponent, but were going up against another relatively young team who was trying to learn the same lessons. Against Dallas, the Thunder met a team full of veteran players that have been around long enough that they won’t make silly mistakes down the stretch and will save their best performances for last.

Eventually, the Thunder will be the Mavericks, schooling a young and inexperienced team down the stretch of big playoff games. Unfortunately for Thunder fans, there will be years of pain before this team has that memorable visit to the NBA Playoffs that lasts into June.

For now, they are the fallen team, lying on their backpacks like a dead June bug.

The Apple Cobbler Celtics Disaster

Two nights ago, Ashley and I went out for dinner at Lombardi’s pizza—supposedly one of, if not the best pizzas in all of New York City.

The decision to go out was difficult to make. I knew that Boston vs. Miami, Game 5, a likely elimination game, a potential end of an era, possibly one of the career defining moments of LeBron James' career, was on TV at 7 p.m., but I also knew there was a growing fight brewing between Ashley and me about my dedication to the NBA Playoffs and the lack of non-watching-sports-on-TV events I had to offer her.

She had brought up our lack of non-sports related events a week earlier when I had presented her my ideas for the week; which consisted of watching the Bulls games, going to a bar to watch the Celtics vs. Heat games and buying cheap seats to a Yankees or Mets game.

My best argument was as follows:

Chris: But babe, the Chicago Bulls are on! You’re kind of from Chicago, let’s stay in tonight and watch it.

Compromises were reached. I went to a dance performance, I paid for a dinner out—for both our meals believe it or not!—and I even endured a trip to the BRGR which is basically a glorified Wendy’s that justifies their ridiculous prices by saying, “Well come on, our cows are grass fed, it’s all organic, our shipping truck is a Prius, our fries fight global warming, etc.”

I was, well, at least temporarily, in the clear.

But then came Game 4 of the Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Memphis Grizzlies series.

Our story picks up with about a minute left to go in the game.

Ashley: Chris, I’m going to bed.

Chris: Ok, I’ll be done watching soon.

End of regulation.

Chris: Ashley, we got another overtime game!

(silence)

End of 1st OT.

Ashley: Chris?

Chris: Sweetie you gotta see this game, come out and watch with me!

(silence)

End of 2nd OT

Chris: Babe, it’s triple overtime!

End of 3rd OT

Chris: (checks cell phone time) Uh oh…

Ashley didn’t bring it up the following day, but I wasn’t for a second going to interpret this silence as me being in any sort of clear. The overtime basketball watch was simply a minor offense. She was storing this relationship equivalent of a parking ticket away to be used at a later time when I commit a bigger violation.

Ashley (at some point in the future): You forgot my birthday/our anniversary/Valentine’s Day?! I can’t believe you, this is just like the time you wouldn’t come say good night to me because of that stupid basketball game!

So that brings us to Wednesday night. Of course I wanted to see Game 5 of the Celtics vs. Heat, but I couldn’t risk adding on another misdemeanor offense to my record. Also, I figured this would be like the Lakers vs. Mavericks Game 4, a blowout Heat win that would only piss me off. If the Celtics did happen to win, great, I’d find a way to watch Game 6 with the good graces I earned from skipping Game 5 for dinner. It was a flawless plan.

When she suggested Lombardi’s pizza, I gladly obliged. Little did I know, I was about to personally find out the secret to the Celtics 2011 playoff collapse within the next three hours.

It started at Lombardi’s. We ordered a large, 8 slices, sausage pizza (I would have preferred pepperoni, but Ashley suggested sausage and I needed every easy basket I could get).

The pizza came out, it looked delicious and I began putting the shredded red peppers onto my first steaming slice. As I was doing so, I saw Ashley look over my way at the pepper shaker.

Chris: Did you want any of these?

Ashley: Oh, no, I was just hoping they had some oregano.

What I did next was the equivalent of a 10-0 run in basketball. When the waitress came by to give us some extra napkins, I spoke up, as smoothly as possible, and said “By any chance could you bring over some oregano?” The waitress nodded and I took a victory sip of my free glass of water.

I didn’t look over Ashley’s way, but I felt her mesmerized expression. I knew her heart had just melted and I had all but locked up this evening’s performance. It may not have been a flashly play, but 7 months into a relationship, asking a waitress for the oregano—before  your girlfriend asks you to ask the waitress for the oregano—is the equivalent of a LeBron James breakaway dunk.

I was now in the zone. Well, maybe not “the” zone. Like Kevin Garnett said after Game 3, "I won’t call it a zone. I’ve been in a zone and that wasn’t it. Man, I’ve been in a zone and that wasn’t it, but I had a nice rhythm going.”

My momentum carried over into the eating of the pizza. I devoured the first two slices—which were as good as advertised—and didn’t feel a thing. Third slice, easy, fourth slice, psssh, I was back to my middle-school-growth-spurt eating prime.

Ashley had finished her second slice and was beginning to take down the smallest piece left on the tray for her third and final slice. This left me with the biggest slice of the night for my triumphant finish.

For those of you who have not been to New York City, think about Sbarro from the Midland Mall and their normally large slices of pizza. That’s what sat in front of me on the silver tray. But like the four slices before it, I devoured it as if it were the size of a pizza flavored Combo.

I paid the bill and was, at the time, ready for more. We decided to go out for drinks, well, a drink, because each of us had $10 to spend and in NYC that is enough for maybe a beer.

But my age was beginning to catch up to me as we began walking over to the bar.

At first, I couldn’t accept it. Three years ago I could have eaten five slices of pizza, let it sit for an hour and gone out to play open gym basketball. Now, I might have been able to sprint down the court one time before vomiting in the drinking fountain.

My age showed up again with my “drink” order. Two years ago, I would have found a way to turn $10 into six Natty Lites and downed them all with pride. At age 21—the age I waited for years to get to for the very reason that I could now order drinks at a bar—here I was looking over the drinks and settling my eyes on the dessert menu. Even worse, I didn’t order something young and hip like a brownie/lava-cake/sundae-delight or something metrosexual like a New York cheesecake, but instead, like a 55-year-old white man, I went with the apple cobbler.

In the minutes that passed between my order and the time the waiter came back with our desserts in hand, I will never be able to remember what Ashley was saying.

The ten minutes were, and still are, a complete blur to me. As I sat there, the five slices of pizza finally checked into my stomach. I do not know where they had been for the last hour and a half, but now that my dessert order had been placed, the slices of pizza had occupied nearly all the space in my stomach, sprawling out across my gastric canal as if it were there living room, leaving just enough space for maybe the cherry-on-top of a milkshake that would be instantly transferred to a to-go styrofoam cup.

Bite one of the apple cobbler; incredible. Problem, I was two big bites away from being one of those guys in an Alka-Seltzer commercial and three bites away from ending the night keeled over the toilet.

I tried to regain my composure, took another bite, but felt even more stuffed than before. Bite three, completely full. Bite four, I loosened my belt, bite five, admitted defeat.

Less than two hours after a “back-in-my-prime” pizza eating performance, there I was, with a 30% eaten apple cobbler, at a bar filled with energetic NYU college kids, feeling like I was about to pass out on the table. Any youthful exuberance or ultimate manly moments I had felt at Lombardi’s were officially gone.

I couldn’t look over at Ashley. This time, it wasn’t because I knew she was looking over with pride at a sentimental oregano gesture, but instead, I was too afraid I would break down into tears when I saw the look of shame in her eyes.

The waiter came over and I think there was a mutual understanding that a to-go box would not be necessary. I left the check, which Ashley paid for, along with my dignity at the table and sulked my way home.

Sadly enough, the next morning an extra inch of fat had been added to my lower gut. As I looked down at a belly that was once not referred to as a belly, but instead “abs-ish”, I realized the exact reason the Boston Celtics lost against the Miami Heat:

In your prime of 18 years old, you can devour five slices of pizza, take down a monster dessert, go play a basketball game and wake up the next morning two pounds lighter. At 21, you may be able to have that one great dinner performance, but you slow down at dessert and wake up heavier than you were the night before.

If this is true for me at age 21, how much more can it be true of the Celtics, who are all above 30 (besides Rondo) and instead of being able to finish two monster meals and walk home are being asked to sprint up and down the court with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, who are both athletic freaks AND are both in their primes.

An old team will still have flashes of brilliance—like the Celtics did in Game 3—but for every five slices of devoured pizza accomplishment is a matching 30 percent completed apple cobbler, that declares the first feat as more of a fluke than a foretelling performance.