It is so obvious that it takes two to tango that it is hard to even imagine a one-person tango.
The Celtics won. The Lakers lost. The news is as obvious as that there are no Celts on the Celtics and no lakes in Los Angeles. But reading the coverage of Tuesday’s NBA triumph in Boston reinforces the truth that people see things from their own perspective.
It is always illuminating to use the miracle of the internet to read different coverage of the same event. One side will say it lost while the other will say it won; if your team is held hitless they are chump batters while to the others it is great pitching.
So on the NBA championship.
In Los Angeles, they say the Lakers lost as if the Celts played no part in it, and are taking the skin off their players, notably the wondrous Kobe Bryant. In Boston and vicinity they say the Celts won as if the Lakers played no part in it and are praising to the heavens their players. The truth? In Boston, surely.
“Lakers are buried in the garden” says the disintegrating Los Angeles Times.
With almost nary a nod to the fact that the Boston defense was pretty good, Bill Plaschke says of Kobe: “The league MVP was AWFUL, unable to break through even the most basic of one-on-one Celtic defenses, unable to carry a team that needed carrying … They need toughness in the middle. They needed maturity everywhere.”
T.J. Simers offers, “If Phil Jackson is supposed to be the best coach in the NBA, then how come he didn’t send Vladimir Radmanovic off to another continent to do some snowboarding this last week? Some strategist.
It’s over, all right, the Celtics champs with an exclamation point — Jackson outcoached, the Lakers outplayed, and as a group, your God-like heroes blew it. They are an embarrassment. They went into the NBA Finals favored, the Celtics suffering injuries to several of their starters along the way, and still the Lakers could not measure up.” And much stronger stuff, too.
Meantime, Mark Heisler sighs, “All that was left was a confused, overmatched, soft little band of Lakers, circling the perimeter of the Boston defense like ants who couldn’t get out of the rain as 21 years of frustration fell on their heads in the Celtics’ 131-92 rout.”
Across the continent, the story is not that the Lakers lost but “Celtics Win NBA Title.”
Jeff Jacobs of the Hartford Courant, says, “The Celtics completed the greatest turnaround in NBA history in a manner befitting their remarkable achievement. They beat L.A.
“Actually, that’s a horrible understatement. The Celtics crushed L.A.”
The Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan took the same spin, “The Boston Celtics did not just win franchise championship No. 17 lastnight. They snatched it. They swallowed it. They demanded it,” while it was “Glory Goes to Celtics,” in the Boston Herald.
Sure, the Lakers came up waaaay short but a lot of that had to do with how well the Bostons played. Sure, the Celts came up waaaaay ahead and some of that is how the Lakers played. But is fun, just watching, seeing how each side spins the ball.