Entry 11:

Chas,

Wait a minute. I'm the lumberjack, up here among the (covered) bridges of Addison County. You live in the tweedy 'burbs of Boston, where people are supposed to care that (hope the noggin does not betray me here) Wittgenstein, the beery swine, was twice as sloshed as Schlegel. And while there may indeed be "nothin' Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'bout the raisin' of the wrist," Arvydas Sabonis—whom Curry Kirkpatrick once described in our pages as suffering from Stolichnaya elbow—could lead a graduate seminar on the subject, according to every Lithuanian I've talked to.

Why do I have this sense that the Nets are finished? Maybe it's because they run the Princeton offense, and from watching the Tigers over the years, I've learned that their backcuts and dribble handoffs work best in one-offs—against Georgetown or UCLA in the NCAAs, or some other non-league opponent that hasn't seen the stuff before. Familiarity breeds defensive effectiveness, and Princeton gets relatively few backdoor layups in Ivy play. Here we're only through Game 2, and the Celts have already figured out how to lock the Nets up. More, the Nets have, in Jason Kidd, only one guy who can conjure a basket when their sets break down. In Pierce and Antoine Walker, the C's have two.

I would be remiss—I'm steepling my fingers here, the way Ralph Wiley used to on The Sports Reporters—if I didn't point out whom we can blame for not having any games to chew over tomorrow. The Great Mammon TV is hoarding dates to play with over the Memorial Day weekend. So, perhaps we can dope out the NBA draft? I've already made my case for Yao Ming. Re Maryland's Juan Dixon, I believe it was you who once said that "He plays the passing lanes well" is the "She has a nice personality" of defense, but Dixon has wrapped that defensive skill in thong underwear. As for Jason Williams of Duke, who has changed his name to Jay Williams, to distinguish himself from Jason (White Chocolate) Williams and Jayson (Orange Jumpsuit) Williams, I'm disappointed he didn't give more serious thought to a glyph, à la the Artist Formerly Known as Prince. And one of the top power forwards available will be a Brazilian named Maybyner Hilario—who, in the manner of Pelé, goes simply by Nene. You know the global hoops wave has broken upon these shores when the NBA is about to suit up a Brazilian mononym. (Ahem. Have I mentioned that I've written a book about global hoops? All those TNT promos for Witchblade have taught me a thing or two about the marketing arts.) Lest we be fooled by Maybyner Hilario's surname, please recall that not long ago some NBA club brought over for a look-see an Italian named Walter Magnifico, who was not. Hilario, Olajuwonesque in his game, had best be taken muito seriamente.

Yes, I'm deep in the pale of hockey influence up here and feel disconcertingly removed from the playoffs, even with the Eastern finals relocating to Boston. But as long as we're waxing philosophical, I'll try to make the case that being there is overrated. Earl Manigault's legendary dunk, the one the Goat threw down over Vaughn Harper and Val Reed in 1963 in a gym on Manhattan's 113^th Street, spawned a generation of Harlemites who claim to have witnessed it. "I myself have never seen its equal," Bobby Hunter, a former Globetrotter, once said. "And I was in Detroit at the time."

Ontologically,
Alex