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Barfstool rips off Sidetalk and spreads extra mayonnaise on it

May 31, 2023

I have no stake in the Boston vs New York rivalry. I think both lobster and chopped cheese sandwiches are delicious. I listen to both the Notorious B.I.G. and New Edition. I also find both places to be unnecessarily loud and obnoxious but I get it, neither one has enough space. All of that being said, Boston you should be ashamed of yourselves for combining with Barfstool to blatantly bite off of the Sidetalk videos out of New York.

Well, Barfstool made the video so they should be most ashamed. They took the concept, shooting, and editing of the Sidetalk videos and tacked on a stand-up from Barfstool “personality” Dana Beers. Two of these Sidetalk knockoffs have been shot in Boston. One after the Game 5 win, and another after the Celtics lost Game 7. These videos are the equivalent of me doing pizza tastings across the country and dropping “one bite” from my YouTube channel handle.

There are a couple of funny one-liners in the video, but the jokes aren’t what make Sidetalk’s work pop. One of the most recognizable faces from the Sidetalk videos is the guy who screamed, “Hey KD, don’t you regret not coming to Knicks!” The most famous line from the video series is, “bing, bong!” Actual onomatopoeia went viral.

It doesn’t matter the exact lines from Sidetalk videos. People from New York are displayed as pleasantly unhinged. Many non-New Yorkers expect New Yorkers to be outside screaming wildly, but possibly at a tourist to hurry up at a Metro turnstile. Instead, Sidetalk shows people from a small section of America, all simply trying to be the life of the party at the same time. And not in a way that diminishes the previous boisterous person. It’s more like a cipher. Everyone is simply trying to keep the moment flowing.

Even if the Barfstool video had its own Spidercuz sharing Hennessey outside of TD Garden with no regard for COVID-19, their product would pale in comparison. Barfstool is doing what all of the college football teams did with the Miami Hurricanes’ turnover chain — swagger jacking. When a good idea is widely praised, people are always going to try and make their own version. That version will always be Folex compared to the real thing.

Not just a copy, but it felt forced

The Barfstool video also wreaks of Boston’s inferiority complex. As loud as the people from that region of the country can be, the entire video felt forced. I could feel the straining vocal cords in my own throat as the Bostonians meekly attempted to match the energy and volume of the New Yorkers in front of Madison Square Garden.

We get it Boston, you threw the tea in the water and told us that the British were coming. That’s not critical race theory so that will remain in every textbook nationwide — unlike your school integration in the 1970s.

New York is always going to have a cool advantage over you all. Larry Bird dove into the crowd for loose balls and built his mom’s driveway himself, but he is certainly no Clyde Frazier. Lawrence Taylor vs. Tom Brady, Desus and Mero vs. Dave Portnoy, hell, Bill Parcells vs. Bill Belichick — sorry Boston, you will never win enough championships to make up the gulf between you and the Big Apple.

That unoriginal work of bleh from Barfstool is further proof. Leave the cool to those who know what it looks and feels like. Style is not zombie blood. It can’t be transferred by biting.

Stick to biting those damn pizzas.

Boston’s ‘intimidating’ postseason home-court advantage is dead

May 30, 2023

Boston Celtics fans woke up Tuesday morning still stunned that their team lost by 19 points to the Miami Heat in TD Garden on Monday night in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Any hopes of back-to-back trips to the NBA Finals were ended by Caleb Martin. And the dream of being the first team to ever come back from down 3-0 turned into a nightmare on the first play of the game when Jayson Tatum turned his ankle.

“See, Boston Garden. Brothas walk into that place and you can feel it like a cold wind. You find yourself running down the court tripping over thin air. Go to dribble, ball don’t bounce. Just sticks there, like a mud puddle. No logical explanation to it, either.” — Norm Nixon (played by his son DeVaughn Nixon) in Episode 7 “Invisible Man” of HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.

That isn’t the case anymore. Boston’s mystique has evaporated.

And while it’s understandable why everyone in Boston is hurting today. The outcome of Monday’s night game shouldn’t have been a shock, given how bad this core group has been when it comes to closing out games on their parquet floor.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane.

TD Garden has been a site of high-stakes playoff games

The last time the Celtics had a Game 7 on their home floor in the Eastern Conference Finals was in 2018. And like Monday night, they lost. LeBron James played every second of that game — without Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving — and finished with 35 points, 15 rebounds, and nine assists.

“It was pretty incredible run by an incredible group of guys, and an absolute pleasure and privilege to be around them every day,” said the Celtics’ former head coach, and current president, Brad Stevens after the game. “We obviously have a good thing going.” Little did he know that more postseason heartbreaks were on the way.

In last year’s NBA Finals, the Celtics stunned the Golden State Warriors in Game 1 to take an early series lead. However, the most memorable game of that series took place in — you guessed it — Boston. With a 2-1 series lead and a chance to put the dagger in the Warriors, the Celtics melted at home in Game 4 when Steph Curry played the best game of his life — scoring 43 points and grabbing 10 rebounds to give the Warriors a 107-97 win, tying the series at 2-2. Boston never won another game.

“We had to do it the difficult way. We have to do it again. It could have been an easier road, obviously, if you get the win tonight. But we’re 2-2 now. We know we can do it. We’ve done it before,” said former Celtics coach Ime Udoka after the game. He lied.

Celtics consistently inconsistent at home

This postseason run was full of hints that the Celtics might have better luck closing out a series on the road than at home. In the first round, Boston gave an Atlanta Hawks team that’s used to pulling off postseason upsets even more confidence after Trae Young hit a game-winning deep three-pointer to win Game 5 at TD Garden, pushing the series to a sixth game in Atlanta that should have ended in five in Boston. In the next round, the Celtics dropped Game 1 to Philadelphia thanks to James Harden, and would later lose Game 5 at home giving the Sixers a 3-2 series lead. And finally, there was this last series. One in which the Celtics lost three games in Boston.

“We failed. I failed and we let the whole city down,” said Jaylen Brown, who was a pathetic 8-for-23 from the field with eight turnovers. “In spite of whatever circumstance we had this year we rose to the occasion. We got to this point and we came up short.”

According to Axios Sports, entering the 2016 NBA Finals, home teams were 101-24 in Game 7s. Since then, they’ve been 8-11. Also, seven times this postseason the lower-seeded team won a series, which is the most since 1983.

It’s a sign that matchups and health mean more than seeding. So, if you hate “load management” and think stars should play every game, there’s a strong possibility that you’re probably going to hate the new NBA. Since “ring culture” has made it so that stars are only judged by how many championships they’ve won, the regular season has become a warm-up for the playoffs. But remember, the fans and many in “the media” made it this way.

But, back to the matter at hand. Which is that the Celtics aren’t good in Boston. TD Garden isn’t “The Garden,” and Larry Bird isn’t walking through that door. Building your entire home-court advantage on racism and terrible amenities for visiting teams no longer works. Time to figure something else out, like late-game execution.

Boston Celtics blew it and didn’t even give fans their money’s worth

May 30, 2023

Boston Celtics guard Derrick White walks to the bench after being taken out of the game in the closing minutes of the second half in Game 7.

After a dramatic finish to Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Game 7 didn’t nearly live up to the hype. But that only matters to the city of Boston. The Miami Heat stormed into Beantown, took care of business early, and completely silenced the crowd inside TD Garden by halftime. The Celtics might as well have laid down halfway through the first quarter, as it seemed they never really got started and showed little sense of urgency as they continued to chuck up bad shot after bad shot. The C’s couldn’t accomplish what the 2004 Red Sox did in digging their way out of an 0-3 hole and winning the series. Boston became the 151st NBA team to come up short.

You’d think a team who barely escaped Game 6 would come out fired up for Game 7 and leave it all on the court. But not this Boston squad. The Celtics almost looked defeated from the jump after Jayson Tatum rolled his ankle on the game’s first play. That’s not an excuse; it’s an observation of how lackluster Boston’s effort felt almost immediately. It felt like a game seven early on based on the fans’ energy in the arena, but that quickly subsided when the Celtics began clanking threes as they missed their first 12 three-point attempts in this game. A team cannot often shoot that poorly to start a game and still manage to win.

No ‘A’ in effort

When Boston entered the locker room at halftime down 11 points, it felt like the end was near. Everyone expected them to make a run, and they did, but each time the home team got within striking range, the Heat hit another big shot to counter Boston’s run and extend their lead. Miami’s Caleb Martin was the culprit this night, hitting four threes, with a couple coming at crucial points in the game. Martin scored 26 points as he played sidekick to ECF MVP Jimmy Butler, who contributed 28 and led all scorers.

Boston simply failed to show up in the big moment once again. It happened last year in the NBA Finals and even at times during last year’s ECF against the Heat. The Celtics want to “out talent” every team they face, and that strategy has failed them. Forget about seeding. Based on overall talent, the Celtics have a deeper roster than the Heat, top to bottom. Not many picked Miami to come out on top of this series entering game one. Then the Heat built and lost a three-game lead in the series, and we were right back to square one.

Only someone should have reminded the Celtics that everything was on the line Monday night. History, a second consecutive trip to the NBA Finals, their season, everything. As the game went on and the hole got deeper and deeper in game seven for the Celtics, you could feel the life being sucked out of TD Garden with every Butler or Martin dagger down the stretch. The camera panned through the stands to show a lot of unhappy Bostonians — including a distraught Bill Simmons — in the form of celebrities, athletes, regular fans, and former Celtic players.

There is an ‘E’ in embarrassing

Paul Pierce was shown in the fourth with a sour face on like he’d just taken down a family pack of Sour Patch Kids. Pierce had a look on his face similar to when Draymond Green clowned him when he was winding down his career in L.A. with the Clippers. That’s how sickening the Celtics’ performance was in Game 7. It gave a Celtics legend flashbacks to one of his most embarrassing moments on the court, but that wasn’t nearly as bad as the beatdown Miami put on ‘em Monday.

If the loss at home wasn’t bad enough, Boston had to watch awards named after Celtic greats Bob Cousy and Larry Bird handed to the Heat on their home court. All Celtics players, present and past, should be thoroughly disgusted. It’s one thing to lose, but to play the way the C’s did in Game 7 is unacceptable.

All good things must end

Monday night may have, in fact, been the last time we see these Celtics as currently constructed. Jaylen Brown is now due for a contract extension and can sign a five-year deal worth close to $300 million. Then Tatum will be up for his extension after next year, which could be worth nearly $320 million. Both players were named to All-NBA teams this season which makes them supermax-eligible.

Trade talk has surrounded Brown the last couple of years, so it isn’t inconceivable to think the Celtics could be moving on from the 26-year-old. It always seemed to be a matter of time before they split up the Tatum and Brown duo. They got six highly successful years out of them but failed to capture an NBA title.

After another disappointing end to the season, it might not be too far-fetched to wonder about first-year head coach Joe Mazzulla’s standing with the team either. Mazzulla replaced Ime Udoka this season, and Boston continued where they left off last year but ultimately regressed by not getting back to the NBA Finals.

Jimmy Butler went nuclear and evaporated Milwaukee’s title aspirations

April 25, 2023

Jimmy Butler dropped 56 points on the Bucks

Monday night’s pandemonium was indicative of the Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler era. Grinding and persevering have defined the Heat for the last four seasons. When the odds are against him, Jimmy Buckets rises to the top of the food chain, but Game 4 was the capstone in his postseason cap. In the pantheon of postseason performances, Butler’s 56 points against the Milwaukee Bucks was a spiritual awakening. Butler came stomping into Game 4 in his Black Air Force 1s and left everything ounce of energy he had left on the floor.

The only playoff outputs that surpassed Butler manifesting a double-nickel, plus a penny he found in his couch cushions, were Donovan Mitchell’s 57 points in an O.K. Corral bubble shootout against Denver, Elgin Baylor dropping 61 in the Finals and Michael Jordan’s 63 making Larry Bird believe he was God in human flesh.

Playoff Jimmy Butler > regular season Jimmy Butler

Miami needed every. single. point. In the absence of Victor Oladipo, who was lost to another devastating knee injury, and Tyler Herro whose broken hand will take six weeks to heal, it took a heroic effort from Jimmy Buckets to keep the Heat within striking distance. He started pouring it on early, scoring 20 consecutive Heat points in the first quarter — 22 of his team’s 28 in the frame — but the fireworks climaxed in the fourth quarter. Trailing 101-89 with 6:08 remaining against the 2021 NBA champs — who haven’t been eliminated when fully healthy and boast a two-time MVP unicorn recognized as the most dominant force in the NBA — Miami’s crunchtime king turned it up a notch. Butler scored on a barrage of pull-up threes, jumpers, assaults on the rim, and when all was said and done, he’d scored or assisted on 22 of Miami’s 30 points in the final six minutes.

“We knew what we were capable of, even if nobody outside of this building, outside of this roster and outside of this organization believed in us,” Butler said. “That’s fine. We just want to continue to do what we know is possible.”

Milwaukee not looking like a No. 1 seed

Nine days ago, Milwaukee marched into the postseason as a top-five defense. Butler sliced through them with the precision of a surgical scalpel. 1,000 cuts later, Miami was up 3-1 over the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed. Following a muddy season, in which Miami played more clutch minutes in the regular season than all but one team, they limped to the eighth seed after getting crushed in their play-in opener by the Atlanta Hawks.

Butler seemed to have missed his moment when his transition triple being declined by the rim in last year’s Conference Finals was his signature playoff moment to this point. Miami might seem overqualified for the No. 8 seed, but during the regular season, Miami’s shooters developed a fatal attraction with shots from beyond the arc. Spoelstra’s perimeter-oriented offense earned the fourth-worst three-point shooting percentage in the league while attempting more triples than a third of the league, equated to an offense that finished dead-last in scoring and 25th in offensive rating. In the first round, Miami started a brush fire from distance, leading all postseason teams in offensive rating and 3-point shooting percentage.

Butler has the repertoire of a construction worker, but his stage presence in dramatic moments has reached all-time status. His no-frills breakdown of defenders out of the triple threat, bull rushing through the lane on drives to the rim, or his vanilla pull-up triples may not be as appealing as James Harden’s shimmies and shakes, but it gets the job done.

The disparity between Playoff Jimmy Buckets and regular season Jimmy Butler is in direct contrast to Harden in that sense. One is ballooning into his Steven Seagal era while the other looks like he spent the summer training with Wesley Snipes. Through Philly, Brooklyn, and Houston, we are still waiting for a signature postseason showcase game on Harden’s résumé.

In an era where superstars linked up to ring chase with pals, Butler took two steps back by vacating his spot as Joel Embiid’s right-hand man to assume Dwyane Wade’s South Beach throne on a below .500 team devoid of All-Star talent.

Led by Butler, and half of a roster they mined from the depths of the G League, Pat Riley’s platoon of lunchpail hoopers is one of the most resourceful groups in the league. They’re used to doing everything the ugly way. Sorry to disappoint the esteemed scribe, Stephen Knox, but Miami is one step closer to finessing their unseasoned stone soup offense into the next round.