Tuesday, May 1, 2012

LA's Tim Tebow Moment

By Allen Bacon, The Daily Bosco

If you were like most NBA Basketball fans on Sunday night, you were probably shutting it down and switching over to The Good Wife or Harry's Law or (if you were watching in the East) going to bed when, late in the third quarter the Los Angeles Clippers were trailing the Memphis Grizzlies by 27 points in their first round NBA playoff game.  I'm sure there were many happy Memphis fans, thinking they had won game one, who decided to beat traffic and get home early.

Us Clipper/LA fans had seen this before with the Clippers. It's been like this going back to their days in Buffalo and San Diego.  The Clippers will have a rare great season and blow up in the post season. We are like the Chicago Cubs of basketball.  History was looking like it may repeat itself....again.

I consider myself pretty optimistic and I will stay with my team until the very end.  But even I was thinking of shutting down the link to the Clipper-Grizzlie game via KFWB 980 in LA on Bosco Radio Sports Channel on Sunday  in favor of going to the Kelly Cup Final ECHL Hockey playoffs in Alaska earlier than expected which was heading to an exciting sudden death overtime finish on Sunday night.

Even the usually optimistic Clipper coach Vinnie Del Negro was thinking about shutting it down for the night and resting his star players like Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. It's common to do that to risk injury.  But that's when Chris Paul pleaded with Del Negro to keep him and the first stringers in.

I have seen many amazing things in Los Angeles sports over the years.  The Jerry West Half Court Shot in the 1971 NBA Finals.  The Kirk Gibson, when he was barely able to walk,  hit a walk off home run against Dennis Eckersley in the 1988 World Series.  I have seen the other NBA team, the Lakers, come back against Dallas one night when down by 21 to start the fourth quarter.  I have seen the Anaheim Angels come from no where and being left for dead in 2002 to win their first World Series.  But I have never seen anything like what I saw on Sunday night when the Clippers outscored Memphis on the Grizzlie's home court by 28 points in the fourth quarter to win by one point.

It was LA's Tim Tebow moment.

I was trying to think of a metaphor for this event....I do that when I write..you might have noticed.  This is when I remembered it was the Twentieth Anniversary of the Los Angeles Riots. The city was nearly destroyed on the night and the nights following April 29 in 1992.

Even to this day, you can see the remnants of that devastating time in Los Angeles history.  Empty vacant lots and homes and businesses where there were once homes and businesses before April 29, 1992 are no longer there.

But like the Clippers on Sunday night we are not giving up.

Businesses, jobs, homes and hope are coming back to the area.

It may be late in the game, but we are not going to give up on Los Angeles.

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