HIS ROAD BACK TO THE FINALS
Five years ago, I did a breakfast interview with Joe Dumars. It was his final season as a Detroit Piston, and he was talking about life after he hung up his sneakers.”I want to take a year and go see every major sporting event in the world,” he gushed,...
The Empire Strikes Back
LOS ANGELES — They were three seconds from the top of the castle. Three seconds from a hammerlock on this series. And then Kobe Bryant lifted as high as a man can go without a trampoline, and Richard Hamilton got a hand up but not enough body, and the ball flew toward the hoop with every ounce of Lakers legend spinning a cloud of pixie dust around it. You knew it was going in. You could have closed your eyes and seen it.
HE’S THE LINK FROM BAD BOYS TO TODAY
LOS ANGELES — This was Sunday night, just minutes after the Pistons had stunned the Lakers in Game 1 at the Staples Center. Lindsey Hunter, still sweating, looked up to see Joe Dumars, the team president, inches away from him.”Listen, before the media...
TAKE THAT, L.A.
LOS ANGLES — They arrived like the plumbers called to fix the movie stars’ sink. Barely noticed, anonymous but for their uniforms, they knelt, took out their toolbox, and went to work. And by the time the game was finished, water was all over the place....
A Reputation Ruined For No Good Reason
First, they pulled him off the bus. Literally. Suspended him from the job he loved, accused him of stealing money, said his team of high school girls, looking anxiously out the bus windows, would have to play its championship game without him.
Then, over the next 18 months, like crows plucking at a carcass, certain forces in the Southfield school system slowly took away everything else Ben Kelso had worked for.
Our Finals Feud
Bill Plaschke writes for the Los Angeles Times.
Their leading scorer goes to work in the ideal accessory of all unfortunates who wear the name “Pistons” on their shirt.
A mask.
Their leading rebounder’s unkempt hair has not been cut since the last time his team made a scoreboard sweat.
About five years, he says.
The only bit of greatness in their locker room is the engraving upon the one and only championship ring there.
Lakers, it reads.
Prince: He’S The X-Factor
Things we forget about Tayshaun Prince: 1) He is only 24. 2) He barely played last season. 3) He is a college graduate. 4) He already has, in his young adult life, moved from the West to the Southeast to the Midwest. 5) While he looks like a cartoonishly skinny, open-mouthed kid, he grew up in Compton, Calif., the hard side of L.A., which means 6) he really wanted to be drafted by the Lakers and 7) he is about to go home and play them.
Finalized!
MITCH ALBOM All night long they had been trying to snare the only thing that mattered, a lead. They never had it. At one point, it was as far off as a ship on the horizon. Slowly, they swam in, clipping away, a point here, a basket there, until finally, finally, in the fourth quarter, they reached sea level. A tie at 54 points. A tie at 57. A tie at 59. A Chauncey Billups three-pointer. A Ben Wallace turnaround. A Tayshaun Prince block. Whatever was in the arsenal, it was coming out now. Richard Hamilton took a forearm to the face, hit the deck, got up and made two free throws.
A Quiet Time for Patriotism and Reflection
In the final scene of “The Deer Hunter,” the friends and family of a fallen soldier gather at their small-town bar after his funeral. It is early in the day. A few of them break out eggs and scramble them. A few more cut bread or set the table. They sit together quietly. Then, in perhaps the most moving moment of the film, one man begins to sing.
God bless America,
Land that I love . . .
Stay Connected
The only newsletter dedicated to updates, exclusive content, and giveaways of Mitch's books!