The Miami Heat travel to Boston tomorrow to try and begin finishing off the Boston Celtics in round two of the NBA playoffs. Yet, the team still can't shake it's perception of the villains, and lots of Heat haters will be rooting for the Celtics to pull off a comeback out of spite. Yet, the history of sports justice tells us that if the Heat deserve to prevent any other team from winning another NBA championship it's the Celtics. The city of Boston has a weird sports glory entitlement problem, and really, the rest of the nation should be rooting for the Heat to squash them.
1. The Boston Celtics wrote the book on NBA domination. They have 17 NBA Championships, with the most recent in 2008. That's a record. In fact, in the '60s they won the Championship nine times in a decade on the strenght of their then big three: Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, and Tom Heinsohn. If you've got a friend who's neither a Boston or Miami fan, but is rooting for the Celtics because they don't like the idea of Heat domination, just remind them that they're only following a strategy originally set forth by the Celtics.
2. Besides their 17 NBA Championships, Boston sports teams also have 5 Stanley Cups, 3 Super Bowl Wins and 7 World Series Titles. That's 32 trips to the top of pro sports leagues. That's rediculous. Miami in contrast has a pair of Super Bowl championships from the '70s, two weird World Series wins, and a single NBA Championship. That's just 5. We're long overdue for a dynasty. And with all due respect to the Hurricanes, we mean a pro dynasty.
3. To put it in perspective, South Florida is now the eighth-largest metro area in America, with more than 1 milion more people than Boston. Of the seven metro areas larger than Miami, only two (Washington D.C. and Houston) have fewer pro titles. Four of those areas have a single team that has one more big trophies than all of our sports teams combined. Several metro areas smaller than us, including Boston, Detroit, San Francisco and Pittsburgh, to name but a few, have more pro titles than we have.
4. The Curse of Marino is the new Curse of the Bambino. Yes, the Boston Red Sox's Babe Ruth curse was an 84-year affair, and the Miami Dolphin's so-called Marino Curse has only been in effect since 1999 (with no relief in site). Yet, what makes the Marino curse somewhat sadder is that Dolfans aren't even asking for another Super Bowl. Hell, Marino didn't even win us one. We just want a decent quarterback. That's all. And you know what happened during the Curse of the Bambino? Yes, you do because we've mentioned it a million times, but Boston's basketball team at least gave their sports fans some relief with a bunch of NBA championships. So it only makes sense that the Heat should do the same for us in our cursed times.
5. The Celtics last championship came instantly after a wild off-season of cunning trades. In 2007 the Celtics acquired Kevin Garnett from Minnesota and Ray Allen from Seattle to Join Paul Pierce. They also picked up Glen Davis in the draft. They ended up winning the 2008 championship that year. Ain't our fault they haven't won it since, but no one should complain that a franchise can put together a dream team in the off-season and reap immediate reward.
6. They've got Shaq, and that guy deserves another shot at an NBA championship like the world needs another folk singer. At this point in his career, he's only slightly more effective for his team than the mascot. True he worked hard for his first four championship -- the last of which was with the Heat -- but it would kind of irk us to see the guy claim a fifth on the hard work of other players.
7. This is an accurate description of Boston sports fans:
As Miami sports fans know, sometimes it's better to give of a sheen of cool indifference then let your true colors show and end up looking like this.
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