Watchdog

Bob Cousy - a nice little point guard out of Andrew Jackson High in Queens - is out as a Celtics broadcaster, and he isn't happy about it.

Here's the story.

This just ain't right.

Yo, MSG, stick it to Comcast and the Celtics by bringing Bob home as a guest analyst!

Media Matters, the folks who brought down Don Imus last year, this week uncovered some disturbing radio banter in Minnesota, of all places.

Turns out a couple of clowns (jokingly?) wondered whether Earvin Johnson had faked getting the virus that causes AIDS, prompting Magic to respond angrily. Click below for all that.

One of the strangest assignments of my career was writing the news story about Johnson's announcement in 1991. Of course no one would have believed you at the time if you had said Johnson would be alive and relatively well in 2008.

The next morning I read The New York Times' account and its lead paragraph and mine differed by a single word, as I recall. That was weird. You could look it up, if you had no life and nothing better to do.

If Kenny Anderson is in the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame, and if I covered him when he was a high school freshman, that makes me . . . old.

Anyway, congrats, Kenny.

The Chinese apparently got caught up in the Celtics' championship run last season, lifting two members of the Boston Three Party into the top 10 in jersey sales.

Here are the top selling NBA jerseys in China last season compared to the year before. (I do not have a list of the top selling Chinese players' jerseys in the U.S.)

2007-08
1. Kobe Bryant (Lakers)
2. Kevin Garnett (Celtics)
3. Tracy McGrady (Rockets)
4. Paul Pierce (Celtics)
5. Allen Iverson (Nuggets)
6. Gilbert Arenas (Wizards)
7. LeBron James (Cavaliers)
8. Dwyane Wade (Heat)
9. Dwight Howard (Magic)
10. Yao Ming (Rockets)

2006-07
1. Kobe Bryant (Lakers)
2. Allen Iverson (Nuggets)
3. Tracy McGrady (Rockets)
4. Dwyane Wade (Heat)
5. LeBron James (Cavaliers)
6. Yao Ming (Rockets)
7. Kevin Garnett (Timberwolves)
8. Tim Duncan (Spurs)
9. Carmelo Anthony (Nuggets)
10. Gilbert Arenas (Wizards)

I'm pretty sure there is a clause in the contract of every Newsday sportswriter requiring us to refer to anything local-girl-made-good Sue Bird does.

Hence, you should know that our Ms. Bird will be appearing on "NBA Access with Ahmad Rashad" at 1 p.m. Saturday on Ch. 7 as part of an all-access look at the Seattle Storm of the WNBA.

I once covered a UConn game during Ms. Bird's era in which it beat LIU, 101-29, in a first-round NCAA Tournament game.

Oh, heck, I might as well be the last blog in North America to post Shaq's rap from Sunday night.

The naughty words are beeped out, but parental guidance suggested anyway.

Look, Kevin Garnett from all accounts is a good guy, a great player and an emotional fellow. Mazel tov and props to him for his big victory Tuesday.

But as I watched Michele Tafoya's scary/fascinating post-game interview with Garnett, during which he seemed to be speaking in tongues, I was thinking this:

It is impossible to imagine Bob Cousy or Bill Russell or Larry Bird or Dennis Johnson acting this way on national TV after winning a title. And why is that?

Because the cultural expectations for publicly displayed emotion and celebration have changed, whether it's because of SportsCenter or reality TV or . . . oh, never mind.

I'm just old. Whatever.

Congrats, KG.

I went to a screening of "Love Guru" Thursday. I'm not clear how much I'm supposed to say about it a week before its release.

It was silly, coarse and at times quite amusing. Is that OK?

I can say that if Jessica Alba was pregnant during shooting, it did not show. Her character owns the Toronto Maple Leafs, looks like Jessica Alba and has trouble meeting men.

Did I mention this is a fictional story?

I "watched" the third quarter of Celts-Lakers on a train via auto-refresh on my Blackberry and thought perhaps there was a glitch that only allowed the Celtics' score to change.

The strangest part of my journey to the big city was that Penn Station appeared to be under invasion by middle-aged men wearing Hawaiian shirts. It was scary, and confusing.

Turned out, yup, it was a Jimmy Buffett concert.

I was home in time for the fourth quarter. The referees apparently didn't get the memo about how helpful a 2-2 series would be to the league and failed to foul out Garnett, Pierce and Allen.

Today's lesson in 21st century media:

I did not watch the NBA Finals Tuesday, causing me to miss Jeff Van Gundy discussing his like of Alyssa Milano.

Wednesday, I read Awful Announcing, which discussed this matter.

Then I read The Big Lead, which noted that Van Gundy mentioned the wrong attractive actress who has dated athletes and whose last name starts with M and ends with O.

Then I wrote a post on this subject, as a cheap excuse to post a picture of Derek Jeter and Vanessa Minnillo.

Then Hot Clicks actually CALLED Van Gundy to resolve the confusion, which he did here.

And now I'm doing a post wrapping up the entire saga, and taking advantage of the excuse to post a picture of Kaz Matsui.

It's a good thing I didn't go to journalism school, because if I had, I'd be wondering why.

In honor of a certain weaselly former referee who is in the news this week, we present a clip from when NBA refs were men's men, including fighting fans during the Finals!

Here is Richie Powers in action in Game 5 in 1976, still the wildest game ever played in the NBA Finals.

Bill Plaschke, my Tribune teammate (for now), did something dangerous when he questioned the severity of Paul Pierce's Game 1 injury.

Then he did something more dangerous when he responded to the Celtics fans who ripped him for it.

Thank goodness such melodrama is not encroaching on our quiet, New York-area lives this spring.

We are too busy robotically, numbingly alternating between worrying about what is wrong with Our Mets and Our Yankees, who might just be what they appear to be: a pair of .500 teams!

Whatever. Like Big Brown Saturday, I'm not in the mood today. So I will stop blogging and write a column for the Tuesday newspaper in which I make no observations about the NBA Finals, seeing as how I missed most of Game 2 because I was watching the 1972 and '74 Rangers on "MSG Vault."

No need to bother staying up late watching the NBA Finals.

A computer with time to kill played the series 10,000 times and has decided the most likely result is that the Celtics will win in six games, specifically by a 107-103 score in Game 6.

You're welcome. Sleep tight.

Regardless of its reputation, the New York media always has been a bastion of reserve and sanity compared to our bratty cousins to the northeast.

Today's development: a venerable Boston newspaper columnist who moonlights on TV took on a famous Boston fan/Internet columnist who moonlights in a magazine on the subject of the Celtics-Lakers rivalry.

Here is the column by Bill Simmons that inspired this by Bob Ryan . . . apparently in his blog.

I officially have lost control of the sports media world.

Next thing you know the Globe will be writing an entire story on the departure of Hazel Mae from NESN. Oh, wait . . . here it is.

Uh, oh. It requires registration. Here's a more detailed story from the Herald on Ms. Mae.

Congratulations to the NBA and ABC for joining the NHL and NBC by getting the finals matchup they would have chosen on opening night.

The only downside is it happened less than 12 hours ago and I'm already sick of the references to Lakers-Celtics showdowns of the past.

If a nostalgia-ridden baby boomer like me feels that way, I'm not sure how people under 30 who barely remember the last Celts-Lakers series are going to feel.

Whatever. It's all good. I look forward to three weeks of glowing e-mails from ABC/ESPN about boffo TV ratings, too many of which I will share with you nice people.

I used to know a guy named Jerry Tipton when I covered college hoops in the early 1990s.

He was an expert on Kentucky matters. Always struck me as a level-headed, reasonable sort.

Some Kentucky fans disagree.

Nice couple of days for Eva Longoria.

First, the season finale of "Desperate Housewives" averaged a healthy 16.8 million viewers Sunday night.

Then her husband, Tony Parker, helped the Spurs win a Game 7 on the road Monday and advance to the NBA Western Conference finals.

Then, early this morning Eastern Time in Oakland, the Rays' Evan Longoria (no relation, I think, but still . . . ) hit a two-run, 13th-inning home run to beat the Athletics.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is scheduled to appear at the NBA Store on Fifth Avenue Thursday, where he will be interviewed on Sirius Satellite Radio at about 2:30 p.m.

Thursday also marks the debut at the store of what sounds like a cool exhibit about vintage basketball cards.

Why do I not just insist these friendly p.r. people buy ads in Newsday if they want people to know this stuff? I don't know.

I guess I figured some of you might find it interesting if you happen to be in the neighbhorhood.

Click below for part of the news release on the card thing.

Time Magazine was impressed and inspired by the NBA's recent marketing campaign. Seriously.

Candace Parker can play, obviously.

And sell stuff, too, presumably.

Danica Patrick is going to be on with Letterman Wednesday night, by the way.

One night before Brett Favre.

Dave really likes athletes.

I have to stop now. I have to get back to my real job, which is writing newspaper columns that inspire people to post comments about how clueless I am.

That's what's going on with my Tuesday newspaper column if you want to jump in.

Enjoy Hofstra-Stony Brook lax on MSG Plus at 7 p.m.

Since throwing out the idea Thursday for a column on best/worst sports-themed TV shows, I've gotten more excited about the idea.

So let's really concentrate on this, people, and get together a good list I can steal.

I'll take care of some non-blog duties this morning and check back in with you this afternoon.

Thanks for doing my job for me.

I have seen every NCAA Tournament since 1970.

I never, ever have seen anything like what Stephen Curry is doing.

John Thompson will be doing analysis for Georgetown games in the NCAAs for Westwood One again this year.

It has been unkosher in the past and remains unkosher, technically. But it's not the end of the world, is it? It's not as if listeners are not aware of his potential bias. And he does know his son's team well, presumably.

If Westwood One had told him he couldn't do the Hoyas' games, it wouldn't have had him for any games.

Awful Announcing has the Friday coverage maps for CBS.

Looks like NY market gets:

Davidson-Gonzaga

San Diego-UConn

Mount St. Mary's-North Carolina

Villanova-Clemson

The bloggers tried to storm the gates at the Lakers-Mavs game despite Mark Cuban's ban on such people.

It didn't work.

Here is the L.A. Times' version (look toward bottom).

Here is True Hoops' version.

I'm starting to wonder when teams and leagues are going to catch on to the fact I'm a blogger masquerading as a newspaper columnist now and keep me away from their locker rooms.

Locker rooms are incredibly overrated, by the way.

Thursday slate of NCAA Tournament games in NY market, according to the coverage charts posted on Awful Announcing:

Temple-Michigan State

Oral Roberts-Pittsburgh

Belmont-Duke

George Mason-Notre Dame

CBSSports.com announced it has used up its initial allotment of 500,000 VIP passes for "March Madness on Demand" and released another 250,000 available until 5:30 this afternoon.

You don't need VIP registration to participate, but it eases entry into the system during busy times.

CBS is expecting another record-breaking year of video streams, with every game in the tournament available for the first time.

Thursday figures to be the busiest day, because many fans will not be working on Good Friday.

Cornell-Stanford won't be on in New York, so the computer or DirecTV's out-of-market service will be your only options for seeing the big game.

Or you could hop a plane to California and rent a hotel room.

Bob Knight had brunch Tuesday.

With a sportswriter. A female sportswriter. Who has criticized him in the past.

No, really.

Coming tomorrow:

Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner share cucumber sandwiches and a bottle of Chablis during a picnic lunch in Sunken Meadow State Park.

I'm more of a Dr. Brown's Diet Cream guy, but our friends at Coke Zero have come up with a very strange, very cool toy to fill out NCAA brackets.

It's called "Bracket-O-Matic."

I'm pretty sure it has no practical value, but I just played around with it and somehow accidentally manipulated the categories to get Cornell to beat Winthrop in the championship game.

So maybe it does have practical value after all.

Speaking of which . . . check this out, via Deadspin.

(UPDATE: The friendly p.r. people in charge of this sent a PDF file that explains the methodology. I'd paraphrase it here if I understood it. But I haven't taken a math class since 11th grade at Northport High.)

The tornado-delayed SEC Championship Game Sunday will be seen on ESPN2 at 3:30, not on CBS at 1 as originally scheduled.

CBS will be busy with the Big Ten finale at 3:30. Although the SEC game will be shown on ESPN2, it will be produced by CBS.

CBS will expand its "Road to the Final Four'' show to fill the entire noon to 3:30 p.m. time slot with highlights and analysis of conference tournament action.

If CBS wants a live game to fill some of that time, it could always show the special playoff between Cornell and Dartmouth at 2 p.m. for the Ivy League women's title at Columbia.

Just a thought.

Hard to believe it's been 25 years since Lorenzo Charles was in the right place at the right time.

Notice how Gary Bender and Billy Packer stay quiet for a long time after the winning basket, a practice common today in such circumstances but not as much so back then.

Also check out Thurl Bailey's hideous Final Four hat in his post-game interview.

Modern merchandisers never would allow a hat like that to appear on the head of an athlete who just won the big one.

Doctors in Oregon are running an unusual promotion tied to the NCAA basketball tournament.

I'd prefer you read about it yourself than force me to go into the gory details here.

Let's just say the nets won't be the only thing being snipped during the Big Dance.

Going to write a newspaper column now.

Enjoy the 2001 Santa Clara-Gonzaga game on ESPN Classic at 4 p.m.

It appears my relentless hyping of Will Ferrell and "Semi-Pro" last week was of relatively little use.

The movie was No. 1 at the box office for the weekend, but the experts were unimpressed by its overall take.

Yeah, I know everyone is sick of "Semi-Pro" already because of my many newspaper and blog stories on Will Ferrell.

But check out this excellent piece on ABA unis and logos that was inspired by the movie's opening.

You just can't beat the Oakland Oaks' dribbling acorn.

(I attended Game 7 of the 1976 Nets-Spurs playoff showdown, by the way. Great series.)

This is what I found most interesting about my Tuesday visit with Will Ferrell:

During the news conference I attended with about 25 other reporters, he was cracking deadpan jokes left and right, as you would expect from him.

But once he was off stage and talking one-on-one, he was able to turn off his performance switch and become a regular person.

Example:

Ferrell recently received the James Joyce Award in Dublin. Here is what he told an Irish reporter about his familiarity with Joyce:

"I've always been a fan of his films, 'Titanic,' 'The Terminator' and all those. They’re always too long, though. They just took a wild stab to see if I would even respond and it turned out I was going to be over there anyway so I said, 'Sure, I’ll come over.' They were thrilled regardless of the fact there was no reason I should receive that award."

Click below for more wisecracks.

I included in my Friday newspaper column about Will Ferrell a brief version of his story about the day he had the revelation that he was more suited to comedy than journalism.

Click below for the complete account from our conversation Tuesday afternoon.

One reason sports movies are a difficult sell for studios is the perception that women will not go to see them in large numbers.

Here is what Will Ferrell, who has starred in four sports comedies in the past four years, including "Semi-Pro," which came out today, had to say about that:

"The people I hear talk about it, there’s comments like, well, it’s sports, will we get the women in to see the movie? This that and the other. But I never think about that stuff. If it seems funny and interesting, aside from the fact I’ve done all these sports movies, I kind of just go forward and hope that it will stand on its own two feet in terms of just being considered a funny movie. I think we calibrated the movie enough to wear it’s not so basketball heavy that if you don’t know anything about basketball or hate basketball you won’t be turned off by the movie."