Where to Watch the 2010 NBA Finals in NYC

By Ted on Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Tweet

Not to bring religion into this, but the Jewish faith holds that you're not a man until you have a bar mitzvah. (I think; I'm not actually Jewish and I don't know for sure, but I have attended some bar mitzvahs, and they were generally classy affairs. OK, sidebar over...) The sports equivalent is something like this: you're not actually a Wolverine until you walk off a field victorious over the Buckeyes (technically, Brandon Graham and company were thus never Wolverines) and you're not actually a Laker until you beat the Celtics in an NBA Finals.

Kobe Bryant may be the ultimate Laker -- Jerry West, Magic Johnson, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O'Neal are all in that mix too, of course -- but all those guys, minus Kobe and the now-departed Shaq, have taken down Boston in an NBA Finals. Kobe? He's cleared the Indiana Pacers, the Philadelphia 76ers, the New Jersey Nets, and the Orlando Magic for his four titles. Nice and all, but the one time he faced Boston in the NBA Finals -- 2008, which you'll see ad nauseam in the next two weeks -- he lost, in six games, with the sixth game being an absolutely massive slap-you-in-the-mouth rout.

So, you'll hear a lot about different storylines in June -- Andrew Bynum's health, the Celtics' resurgence, Rajon Rondo as the best PG in the NBA, Ron Artest's long, strange trip here, Pau Gasol's renaissance, Paul Pierce's Boston legacy -- but the central one is this: Kobe's true Laker legacy, while secure, needs this series win. And after a year where LeBron stole most of the 'best player in the world' headlines -- and right before a July where the King will steal all the headlines again -- Kobe wants these few weeks to be a coronation of a very simple, very plain to see fact: this is still Kobe Bryant's hardwood world, and we're all simply living in it.