We’ve gotten distracted.
We’ve gotten pulled away from the task at hand.
We’ve been led astray. Taken down a wanton path. Bewitched by the siren song.
We have forgotten that our reaction to these NBA Finals is supposed to be to not give the Celtics their due.
In the early stages of the series, we nailed this. We honed in on Jayson Tatum, with Jason Kidd himself leading the charge. We said Tatum wasn’t the best player on his team. We said Jaylen Brown was carrying Tatum to a title. We said Tatum would be nothing if not backed by the best front office in the NBA.
Then, Brian Windhorst changed the tone.
Windhorst’s attack on Luka Dončić was many things. Mean-spirited, dramatic, and accurate, to name three. What it mostly was, though, was distracting, an intentional red herring thrown down by the Bostonian powers which run sports media to keep us from saying, “Hey wait a minute, we’re supposed to be calling this a Mickey Mouse ring for the Celtics.”
And so, as Boston prepares to close out the series tonight, let me say it.
Hey.
Wait a minute.
We’re supposed to be calling this a Mickey Mouse ring for the Celtics.
What do we do now? The task is urgent. We have but a few hours left. What we must do, between now and the end of that fourth quarter, is convince Adam Silver to make Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown fight after the game at Center Court. Brown’s got that dog in him. At the very least, he’ll step into the ring.
Kidd was right when he hit on Tatum as the weak point on the Celtics. Not necessarily in a basketball sense, but in the zeitgeist. Narrative-wise, Tatum is ripe for the picking. Legions of red-blooded Americans are ready to hate on this guy. Setting him up for a fight he’ll definitely decline? That’s how we make our hate salient again. And no, not saline. We’re not salty. We’re just mad these Celtics finally won one and are looking for a strategy that helps us cope.
Etc.
- I didn’t realize Bryson DeChambeau was a chocolate milk guy. Having now realized this, I would like to welcome the Frenchman to our country and congratulate him on winning our Open for the second time.
- Charles Barkley’s retiring from the TV game after next season. Is he going out at his peak? A Michael Jordan-esque exit from the stage? Or is this going to lead to some unretirements, in a Michael Jordan-esque exit from the stage? I do think it would be hard to retire from appearing on TV, especially as a man of Barkley’s physical stature. Too easy for cameras to find. If I was a TV producer, I would spend the 2025–26 sports year looking for Charles Barkley, putting his face on TV, then saying, “Gotcha, bitch! Not retired now, are you?!”
- Klay Thompson has unfollowed the Warriors on Instagram, although Sam Gordon of the San Francisco Chronicle notes—in an article headlined “Warriors’ Klay Thompson unfollows team’s Instagram account as free agency looms” (and subtitled “Why is journalism dying”)—that this is standard negotiation practice these days. I would love to sit in on NBA free agent negotiations. Someone went to law school so they could say, “Clearly our client is serious about testing the open market. He unfollowed you on Instagram!” while Shams Charania snaps his fingers in the corner and calls out, “Uh oh, hunny! He got you with that one!!!!!” then returns to texting whichever of JJ Redick’s groomsmen JJ Redick talks to least.
- Former Iowa star Luka Garza is interested in playing in the EuroLeague, telling eurohoops.net that he’d love to play for any of its teams. Garza is Slovenian, so this makes sense, but Garza is also a young Big Ten graduate living in Minneapolis, and as anyone who has hung out with young Big Ten graduates living in Minneapolis can tell you, this makes even more sense. Of course he’s “considering going to live in Europe for a few years.” He’s in his 20’s, you know? He just, like, thinks living abroad is an experience he really should have. And he, like, he never studied abroad in college, and he’s like really regretted that, you know? It’s just an experience that like, you literally can’t pass up. Plus I bet he could totally get a good job over there. I hear the exchange rate is literally like five to one right now.
- Last, the Cubs are hosting Pride Night tonight against the Giants, and we are a pro-Pride Night outfit here at The Barking Crow. But. Against San Francisco, guys? Now I want stats on how often the Giants play Pride Night games relative to, say, the Cardinals. Does Thom Brennaman have an assistant we can ask about this? How often does Provincetown end up playing the Pride Night games in the Cape Cod League?
