Hardball Heaven

As if we aren't blessed enough around here with our sports teams, the Celtics did it the other night - beating the Pistons on their home turf to win the East in six games. Next up: a hugely delicious championship series against... are you sitting down?... the Los Angeles Lakers. Once again, the two best teams in the Association are the Celtics and Lakers, and the stars have aligned to put them in the Finals for the whole world to see. This is gonna be fun.

As we sit here on a beautiful Sunday morning to begin the month of June, you just know the Globe and the Herald are busy preparing special Finals sections. Get ready for an absolute onslaught of Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Kareem, Gerald Henderson stole the ball, McHale clotheslined Clark Kent Rambis, Jack Nicholson, the heat game in the '84 finals at the Garden, Wilt, Russ, Auerbach, West, Johnny Most, Chick Hearn, Hollywood vs. blue-collar Boston. It's going to be loud, it's going to be frequent, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

The other beauty in all of this: the only way I've been able to convince my wife to watch the games (she hates basketball because of all the foul calls - smart girl) is to see some of the big celebrities in the good seats on high-definition. The other night it was Ellen Pompeo from Gray's Anatomy and that went over big. So this is going to be heaven for both of us.

I'll be back with a post on matchups, but for now, I think we all need a little basketball break. Game 1 is Thursday night at the Garden with a ludicrous 9:20 start time.