After a certain point, I don't really know why I bother with this blog anymore. If I'm going to update it once every two weeks, it's obviously not going to develop into anything, not that it ever was going to become something in the first place. But anyway, the Lakers have survived to play another day.

After watching this evening's travesty, and seeing the Lakers do everything they could to try to put up one more epic collapse, I have several things on my mind. And I'd like to start with this:

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If all those things can be applied to you, then you probably don't play for the Lakers. I'm reasonably sure that Kipling (the author of those lines, in case you didn't know already) never saw a basketball game. It's possible that he may have, since he lived in Vermont for a short time and married an American woman. But that is neither here nor there.

What matters is that the Lakers can't defend the pick and roll, even though KG's screens tend to stretch the limit of what is acceptable even though the refs don't call it. They seem to look around for another person to step up and make a big defensive play, and even to take a big shot. And they don't help Kobe when he needs to get free on the offensive end.

And the Celtics don't really deserve to win, either. I'm hardly the first person to notice this, but Doc Rivers has some serious issues. With the way he juggles his lineup, he's either responding to some sort of insult or slight with all the petulance of a spoiled child or he has serious short term memory lapses. There is no rhyme or reason to the way players not named Pierce, Garnett or Allen (Ray) get minutes on this team.

Davis played really well against Detroit and is MIA in this series. Powe has shown flashes in big minutes against the Lakers but was MIA in the Detroit series. Sam Cassel is old, overrated and, to be quite frank, not quite ready for primetime in HD. Not only that, but he's a chucker. And a championship caliber point guard isn't supposed to be a chucker.

To make a long story short, since it's late and even I have things to do tomorrow, the NBA blows. And it sickens me to see people walking around the city in flaunting their newfound Celtic pride. The same dbags who bailed on the team in the 90s and bailed on the team in the early Ainge years are back in force, and it's like they never left. It doesn't sit well with me.

To show that I'm not all bitterness and cynicism, I will be rooting for Rocco Mediate in the US Open playoff. Real, genuine, honest underdog stories like this hardly ever come along. And while I have no problem rooting for Goliath under most circumstances, I cannot root for a whining, pouting Goliath like Tiger Woods.

It's been a very long time since I attacked Jay Mariotti in this space. With the Red Sox roaring out to that 14 and 1/2 game lead in the first two months of the season, I was just too depressed to read Mariotti's appallingly dishonest carping. I just couldn't handle it. But with Humpty Dumpty falling flat on his face for the second time in as many starts, I thought I could handle it. I was wrong.

What bothers me most about Mariotti as a man and as a writer is the fact that he acts as though he were tough as nails right up until the moment confrontation could become conflict and then he backs off, whining with his tail between his legs. Just look at that infamous dust-up with Ken "Hawk" Harrelson when Mariotti said "I ought to slug you" only to back off and threaten litigation when Hawk showed signs that he intended to do harm to Mariotti.

A close second in the treasure trove of inadmirable character traits that make up the man, the myth, the fraud is his complete lack of scruple and honesty as a writer. The man has no sense of irony, either. Consider this piece he wrote for Monday's paper on the US Open. Mariotti calls Tiger Woods into question for his inability to catch Cabrera, while barely conceding the fact that Mariotti believed that Eldrick would win the tournament.

It's almost as though this column, which appeared in Suday's paper had never been written. I realize a two or three paragraph apology for the tortured logic, mangled metaphors, left-handed compliments, phony tough and crazy brave rhetoric and general poor taste exhibited in that piece would be out of the question, but a brief, humble little digression along these lines: "Look, I made a mistake. I thought the guy was going to win. I had a deadline and might have gotten carried away thinking I was a much better writer than I am. But I was wrong and I'm sorry" would have been nice.

That is far from the only instance. Earlier, before the US Open, Mariotti wrote this piece ostensibly feeling a bit of empathy for Phil Mickelson in his hour of difficulty. Then, after Mickelson missed the cut, Mariotti wrote a column to demonize Mickelson for complaining about the rough. I can't believe that editors, TV producers and the vast public tolerate him. Outside of a blogs, like fireJay.com, Jay the Joke and Boise Wants Jay, hardly anyone calls him on this nonsense.

Mariotti is currently lining up Mark Cuban for this treatment. At the moment, he is in favor of the rumored interest in acquiring the Cubs shown by the Benefactor. Part of it is due to the fact that Jerry Reinsdorf hates Cuban and Mariotti hates Reisndorf. I'm sure there must be, somewhere in the dark recesses of the back corners of Mariotti's oh so prodigious mind, the faint hope that Mark Cuban will buy the Cubs and bring his little freak parade to Chicago. I'm sure that will mean weeks and weeks of columns and hours of TV time for Mariotti to rip Cuban and the Cubs with very little intellectual effort. But I'm sure a nice guy like Jay hasn't thought of that.

Now it's time for me to go back to hating the Red Sox, at least until the fall. Once the Bears start playing again, I'm sure Mariotti will be writing articles like this more often. After all, when can a middle-aged never-was bully a massive, three hundred plus pound world class athlete? Perhaps that is the root of his appeal to whatever demographic Mariotti appeals. All the other frustrated Monday morning QBs must look to him to take the big and the strong down a peg since they can't do it themselves.

Life is full of situations that have many shades of meaning. For instance, there are those who believe that the Red Sox made a statement by sweeping the Giants. After all, over the weekend they added one game to their lead over the Yankees who could only take two of three from the reeling Mets. Even with fact that the Mets were losing games left and right, they're still a much better team than the Giants. I think the Metropolitans managed to prove that in destroying a Minnesota team that is supposed to be fairly good tonight.

As you would expect, given the title of this blog, I found myself singularly unimpressed with this weekend's sweep. Yes, the Sox held Bonds to one home run in what John Updike once described as their lyric little bandbox of a ball park. And they managed to touch up Barry Zito. But I must confess, I have never thought too much of Barry Zito. I've been wondering since he signed that massive contract this offseason whether he is better described as overrated or overpaid. Time will tell.

I did think it was shockingly generous of the umpires to give Daisuke Matsuzaka a win in Saturday's start. That 3-2 pitch to Rich Aurelia was never in the strike zone, at least not in this physical model of the universe. The bases were loaded and had Aurelia walked, Matsuzaka would likely have overreacted as he has done consistently when he feels upset at ball and strike calls. The Giants could have gotten a second run out of it, but at the very least, the game should have been tied.

I didn't bother to watch Sunday's game with the US Open on and all. I wasn't rooting for Angel Cabrera, but when I saw this quote: '"There are some players who have psychologists," he said. "I smoke.",' I wished that I had. I thought it was refreshing that he was smoking on the course. Most players are so afraid of creating a negative impression that they're afraid to do anything at all. It was nice to see someone not care.

Unfortunately, today I learned that I agree with Skip Bayless on a point. He thinks that there is a hole in Tiger Woods' legacy as a golfer. He has come from behind on a Sunday in exactly zero of the 12 major championships he's won. Nicklaus did it eight times. You'd think Eldrick would have managed to do that by now.

In a way, Woods reminds me of Tom Brady. Every time I hear people compare Brady to Montana, it bothers me. Yeah, Brady has led game winning drives in playoff games and Super Bowls. But it's never come when they needed something more than a field goal with less than two minutes. And he's always had Vinatieri. Until he has a moment like the Catch, or that drive against Cincinnati in Super Bowl XXII, Brady will always be a sunshine soldier in my way of thinking.

At the end of the day, it won't matter how many actresses Brady's knocked up or supermodels he's dated that will define his legacy as a quarterback but how many times he got his team only so far and handed over the ultimate responsibility to a place kicker. And when it's all said and done for Tiger Woods, if he's beaten Nicklaus' record of 18 majors without coming back in the final round to take one away from somebody, it's not quite as impressive as Nicklaus' record of 8.

Finally, the Sox are going to be out of town for a few days. I hope that the trip ends as well as it began tonight. Humpty Dumpty took the hill in Turner Field, and he seems to have finally (and somewhat refreshingly) put to rest that appalling inconsistency he's shown of late. Instead of following a terrible outing with a good one, he followed a terrible outing with yet another terrible start. With any luck he can continue down this path. Of course, 38Pitches might not be such a fun read for a lot of people, but I think I could find a way to enjoy it.