I’m Allergic to the Boston Celtics Winning
Allergy season is here & the Celtics are going to win the NBA Finals
“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand over Egypt so that the Celtics swarm over the land and devour everything growing in the fields, everything left by the hail.’” Exodus 10:12
There’s a nagging pain in my left eye that I can’t seem to rub away. In fact the more I rub, the redder it gets. The pain, once a manageable irritant, festers. It’s getting worse. My girlfriend tells me, “it’s just allergies, you’ve never had them before?” as she pops in an Aleve. I haven’t. Every morning I wake with a sniffly nose and the urge to rub my face, my eyes stinging like I applied sunblock and sweat had seeped into my pupils. Yes, the season is changing. It’s windy. The little fluffs of summer cotton and pollen are polluting our skies while the news warns what is upon us.
“Do you have pinkeye?” my friend asks as we watch Jayson Tatum come alive and put the Mavs to bed in Game 3 from a booth in Maui’s.
No, the Celtics are just about to win the NBA Finals. The Boston Celtics are going to carry the Larry O’Brien Trophy home to a parade of Red Socks fitted and Boston Bruins PJ bottom wearing yokels. All of them happy to be in their “safe space”: Dunks in hand, feeling empowered to say the F-slur during Pride Month (average Boston sports fans).
I’ve seen these High Allergen Season warnings before, but I didn’t take them seriously. The Celtics were in the finals two years ago. This sickness never hit me before. Then the evil empire from Martha’s Vineyard stood no chance against the new dynasty of Silicon Valley. Not when the Celtic’s star player was absorbed by the looming ghost of his dead idol Kobe. Feeling so shameful from not being able to perform, not having the metaphorical “dog in him,” that he sent a text message to his deceased daddy’s phone.
I watched on the same patio at Maui’s as my buddy Big Couver1 relished in the Celtics’ sinking ship, savored the salty taste of Haterade so much that the red faced Massholes left the bar in the Third Quarter. Now I have a rash, and I’m an absolute mess.
In the abstract the Celtics are a thing of beauty. The NBA has long been dominated by the superstar, carrying a team to the promised land.2 But there’s always been a special place fans reserve for the ensemble cast. Though novel, fans that love “naming some guys” reserve a certain type of gold-tinted reverie for the 2004 Pistons. The Celtics team certainly falls into the ensemble category. Their “star,” if that’s what you want to call Jayson Tatum (ugh), is probably the third best player in the series. However, the next seven best players all the Celtics cast of role players. They have an eccentric3 young coach, unproven, but it hardly matters because their combination of shooting, defensive athleticism, and a next man up bench, fit like a latex4 glove. But if the 2004 Pistons were Boogie Nights, this team is Grown Ups 2.
Perhaps I can be forgiven for missing the warning signs—allergies can come on later in life after all. I was young when the Big Three happened—KG couldn’t make me sick. To me he was just a Backyard Basketball character, far from the NBA villain people made him out to be. Ray Allen was a three point sharp shooter that merged generations of basketball. And Paul Pierce? He’s only the poor guy that shit himself during a game, only to become the subject of the funniest wrongful termination case in recent memory.5
It’s not just that their players are annoying. From Kobe’s failson, Donda Academy’s biggest non-Kanye booster, he former Florida Gator that shattered my childhood, West Linn’s Eminiem, to, well Jrue, you’re okay. Blink and Boston will have you fooled into thinking it is the urbanist progressive metropolis of the east coast, when it’s just a college town with monuments to car infrastructure and the most mid origin stories for our imperial project: the American “Revolution.” No really. The metro system? A model train set that takes 30 minutes to go twenty blocks going 7 mph. The “most educated city in America?” Yeah, because its colleges produced the most evil people in modern history. They’re underdogs, remember the curse of the Bambino?? I’m going to <redacted> myself.6 But isn’t it a working class city, look at Good Will Hunting? Please, it’s more expensive than New York without the real city benefits.
Dallas on the other hand has no pretensions. Sure, it may require driving on a 10 lane highway to get from your suburban home to the grocery store. Yes, you’re only walking for the day is across the 750 car parking lot to Walmart. But, Dallas makes no claims of not sucking. It may be home to Big Oil’s biggest ghouls, but Boston educated them. Gave them their certificates for practicing law!
There are brief moments of reprieve. I take Benadryl in the Maui’s bathroom and apply eye drops. My lashes twitch when the liquid hits my retina, water rushes down my cheek as if I had just started crying. Then three Kyrie possessions: Transition three (bang), catch and one dribble side step three (bang), dribble pull triple (bang). The Mavs are up double digits at home. The crowd’s bumping. Kyrie is donning a Keffiyeh. The guy in the black and white Celtics fitted next to us—completely silent.
But it can’t last. In the second half Boston doubles Kyrie when he crosses half court. Luka fouls out with five minutes left. The leprechauns swallow the Mavs like locusts swarming everything that grows in Egypt. The pain in my left eye returned before the final bell rang to give the Celtics their 3-0 lead in the series.
Game 4 is tonight. Even if the Mavs don’t completely roll over and avoid a sweep, the odds are long. Like nobody has ever come back down 3-0 in a best of 7 series in NBA Finals history long. My throat is scratchy. Nose is still runny. Eyes are like a leaky faucet—it's unbearable. But as far as I know allergy season, like all things, eventually ends.
Who has made a modest living as Boston’s biggest hater.
Kareem, Jordan, Lebron, Jokic, etc.
Insane Christian weirdo.
Not my allergy to be clear.
JFC, BETWEEN TOM BRADY TONGUE KISSING HIS KIDS AND CURT SCHILLING MAKING TERRIBLE VIDEO GAMES EVERYONE CONNECTED TO THIS CITY IS EMBARRASSING!!!
They’ve won in every major sport more recently than any other city!