I used to follow sports more closely than political news. Back when I lived in New York, I favored the Daily News over the Times, mostly because of better sports coverage (also comics). Over the years, my interest waned: can't say as I ever had any interest in hockey or soccer, so football was the first sport I gave up on (by 1990, most likely sooner), then I lost my taste for baseball during one of the lockouts. So basketball is about all I have left. Don't have time for watching TV, but I occasionally scan the boxes -- not like I used to with baseball, but enough that I have some sense of at least half of the NBA rosters. Watched some of the Boston-Detroit series this year, and maybe half of the Boston-Los Angeles finals, including last night's finale blowout.

I've never been a fan of either team. When I first moved to Boston back in 1984-85, I tried watching Celtics games on TV. The Celtics were supposedly a great team back then, but they only televised road games, and they sucked in the 20 or so games I actually saw. This was a team with Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Danny Ainge -- the only NBA team of the era that was mostly white and still pretty good, a formula that Bostonians favored as long as they could get away with it. (The Red Sox were the last MLB team integrated, and even in the 1980s treated a player like Jim Rice coldly. Even later, the Patriots went out of their way to build losing teams around white QB Doug Flutie.) I might have been open-minded about the Celtics, but I wasn't much impressed by the games I saw, and I soon grew annoyed by the local press. Once the Detroit Pistons emerged as rivals, the press turned rabid, and I found a team I could really root for.

I was still rooting for Detroit this year, but the Celtics played so strong they became much more than just anyone-but-the-Lakers -- a team I've disdained ever since they left Minneapolis, another case of perpetual hype rubbing me the wrong way. That story goes back a long ways, probably picking up some guilt-by-association with the Dodgers (my first allegiance was to the NY Yankees) and maybe even UCLA (gimme KU, or practically anyone else). Still, I had noticed Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol in the box scores, and thought they might make for an interesting team, especially when they so easily dusted off the Spurs. They do, but there's still the matter of Kobe Bryant. He's always struck me as a whiney, self-important potentate, but this year he gets the MVP and I've even heard Barack Obama tout Bryant as the best player in the game.

Last night's game should put an end to such foolishness. I knew the game was going to be a blowout about midway through the first quarter, when the score was still close and the announcers were all agog over Bryant hitting three straight 3-pointers. By that point, Garnett had established his shot and was clearly going to be a big factor, which he hadn't really done before. But I also figured that Bryant would take his hot streak for granted, shooting everything he touches until he's back to his usual .350. (He wound up 7-22; he was .405 for the series, 53-131 -- how impressed should we be that a guy who takes 22 shots per game can score 25 points?) From the very beginning the whole Boston team outhustled and outmuscled LA. Once Boston's shots started dropping it turned into a rout.

One more peeve. Several times the announcers remarked on Boston's one-year shift from 24 wins to the championship, as if that sort of transition was something any team could do with the right leadership, coaching, and chemistry. Actually, it was a very Boston kind of deal, which is to say it's a rich team's fancy. Garnett and Allen are both maximum earners past their prime. Any team looking to build over 2-4 years can expect them to slip, very expensively, by the time they're ready. With Pierce already on board and near his peak, those deals gave them 3/5 of an all-star team if they're lucky and no one slips too hard or fast. Boston then added veterans like PJ Brown and Sam Cassell who have no long-term future but can fill in for now. It all worked to plan: they started the year unbeatable, and rarely slipped. But they're not posed to get better next year, and they're going to pay a lot both now and for retooling. Unlike their teams from Bob Cousy through Larry Bird, this isn't going to be a dynasty. Still, they're more fun to watch than the others I can remember.