Jack’s Blog

There are two constants that viewers of NBA playoff games - or is it any game? - can count on.  One of them is players complaining to referees following fouls called on them.  Or fouls not called on guys guarding them.  Dwight Howard, Pau, Russell Westbrook, KD, Melo, Boozer, KG, Blake Griffin, Tim Duncan, Zach Randolph, LeBron, Bosh, and for all intents and purposes, every other player in the league.  Possibly, it’s because they’re embarrassed they missed a shot.  Or maybe they really got fouled and the ref missed the call.  Or it should have been a charge instead of a block - or a block instead of a charge.

Whatever the case, the following scenario is guaranteed.  The offended player gives the referee the stank eye, then mumbles (or louder and clearer) his displeasure.  Something like “It was a clean block”/”Didn’t you see him hit me?”  Occasionally, additional adjectives an adverbs find their way into the conversation.  In some cases, he will soon be donating money to the league.

The second constant is the refs don’t change their minds.  Larry Sanders of the Milwaukee Bucks put it best in the 4/15/13 edition of Sports Illustrated when he discussed his new found philosophy toward officials:

“What’s going on here?  I’m arguing with the ref, but he’s not the enemy.  Sometimes he makes good calls, sometimes he makes bad calls, but he never overturns his calls.  So what am I doing?”

Granted, these are the dog days of the NBA.  There are a few teams that might already be, dare I say, “positioning themselves” for the draft?  Others know there is more ball to be played (and bonus money to be made) once the season ends.  Except for a select few, e.g. the Lakers, many are more concerned with keeping their key guys healthy than trying to influence the postseason match ups.

Enter the Harlem Globetrotters Miami Heat.  The Heat won it all last year (one year too late, some say).  One of the concerns last season was whether the team had a reliable three point shooter to kick it out to after penetration.  So they got . . . the greatest three point marksman of all-time, Ray Allen.  He joined LeBron, D-Wade and Chris Bosh and (most of) the remainder of the team that won it all.  Was that fair?  There’s nothing fair about building a team in the NBA - the better the executives, the more understanding the owner is that money must be spent wisely (but, make no mistake about it, it must be spent), the slicker the people running the organization, the more likely the team will plug the gaps that are holding it back from being mentioned as a club that can compete for a championship - on a nightly basis.

The Miami Heat knew they were going to - as coaches are fond of saying - get everyone’s best shot.  Winning as much as they did during the first part of the year wasn’t surprising.  The “Big Three” had shed whatever it was that could have been on their collective backs their initial season (their first together) and they seemed to be playing looser.  A similar feeling for their coaching staff.

As the season progressed, injuries hit team after team and, as the post-All Star game part of the schedule moved on, the Heat kept adding win after win.  Now, the “streak” became the topic of conversation.  With the NCAA’s March Madness fever grabbing nearly every sports fan, college basketball owns this time of the year.  Spring training has begun, football and its trading deadline occupies some space and the Blackhawks gave hockey enthusiasts something to talk about post-lockout.

Meanwhile, Miami (the pro hoops team, not the college one) almost bored people with its dismantling of opponents - the “contendas” as well as those who show up because league rules dictate they must.  OK, so what about their bitter rival, aka the (aging, but) capable Boston Celtics?  The arena will always be rockin’ when the Heat show up regardless of the circumstances.  Except that there would be no Rajon Rondo (even though the W-L results have yet to be affected by the little dynamo’s absence) and no KG.  What Kevin Garnett gives the Celts, beyond points and rebounds, is a nastiness seldom seen in any sport.  Or pretty much in any walk of life.  You’ve heard how people say, “If I were in a war, the guy I’d like to have in my foxhole is Kevin Garnett?”  Even pacifists feel that way about KG.

So when it was announced that Garnett wouldn’t be available, green flags were about to be flown at half staff.  Only this is Boston, damn it!  Beantowners don’t surrender to anybody!  Somebody would come through with a wicked good game.  This time that somebody was Jeff Green who had a personal high (as well as a high for most NBA players) of 43.  The Men in Green were often up double digits and led for the entire game.  Or so it seemed.  Until LeBron hit the game winner after the Heat finally tied it.

Had the Heat been toying with them?  To many it might now seem so after watching that game last night, the Heat’s 23rd victory in a row.  A person I was with suggested Miami actually would like to see the streak end so they could simply worry about just winning the playoffs.  The pressure of back-to-back will be enough of a burden.  A winning streak would only be an albatross for the last season’s champs.

Some may wonder if the late, and fiercely competitive, owner of the Raiders, Al Davis, wouldn’t back off (between now and the end of the regular season) his famous saying:

“Just win, baby!”

Stan Van Gundy “occasionally” had his differences with the media.  Not surprising since Stan knew his craft well, certainly better than the people who covered him and his team.  Rumors abounded during his tenure as head coach of the Orlando Magic and it definitely rubbed him the wrong way.

Since the invention of the Internet, writing the game story isn’t enough.  Sportswriting has become a sport.  So many people are writing about the same team that writers are looking for the “story within the story,” i.e. the gossip.  I have to admit that my memory is not nearly as good as it was - from what I’m told, the result of reaching 60 plus - but I can’t remember the term “anonymous source” being used in sports stories - or any other stories for that matter - when I was growing up.

Possibly, I shouldn’t have been surprised when I read that Stan, on a radio show in Orlando, made the seemingly outrageous statement that Chicago Bulls’ superstar Derrick Rose might leave Chi-town.  Rose, a Chicago native and former #1 overall pick, signed a $50 million contract extension that keeps him from free agency until the summer of 2017 but Van Gundy said “the league has changed.”  While Stan said Rose is a great player and ambassador for the NBA, in today’s world guys want a chance to win it all and if Rose doesn’t get better players than his current supporting cast, he might be tempted to go to a team with that has a superior roster.

The turning point in the NBA came when the Boston Celtics obtained Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to go along with their all-star Paul Pierce - and proceeded to win the championship.  LeBron James and Chris Bosh hooking up with Dwyane Wade took a couple years but won a title this past season.  Van Gundy cited Chris Paul leaving a bad roster in New Orleans for a better one, that he wants to improve even more, with the Los Angeles Clippers.  Add to that the recent transactions of Steve Nash and Van Gundy’s former stud Dwight Howard by the LA Lakers and you can see Stan’s point.

Basically, it comes down to winning - and winning it all - which ain’t easy.  As the saying goes:

“If winning was easy, losers would do it.”

Dwyane Wade reached out to a couple of his friends and the three talked about hooking up and creating a dynasty.  The first year, they went to the NBA Finals and lost.  This year, well, you know what happened.  The Celtics pulled off the same move, getting Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to join forces with Paul Pierce.  That move turned out OK too.

With the new CBA being what it is, teams will be using this philosophy to build an instant winner.  Which, after all, is what the fans want.  I find it amusing that when a team is getting older, one question that’s always thrown out is, “Should the team be blown up and built back up again.”  There are a variety of opinions.  I have never doubted the sincerity of those who say the team should be blown up.  Yet I wonder how many of them will stick by their team through the rebuilding process.

Often, which decision is made is based on the location of the team.  Small market teams usually have a more devoted fan base and can withstand growing pains better.  Not that losing doesn’t hurt.  Whatever the case is with those clubs, the teams found in large markets have a loyal group of fans as long as the team wins.  If there’s a prolonged (a short?) period of losing, many will say, “Good luck.  Get back to me when you start winning again.”

Contending isn’t enough for these clubs.  There’s “blow up” talk regarding the Knicks (at least they’re finally good enough to talk about blowing them up), Celtics, Spurs, Mavs and the Lakers.  It’s hard to believe that anyone who has anything to d0 with the Los Angeles Lakers would ever considering anything for their team but challenging for the championship.  I just turned 64 and can’t remember a season in which LA wasn’t a serious contender.

The latest move the Laker brass pulled off will either give the team a chance to add another title to the rafters or . . . call for the bomb squad.  For years the pundits listed “point guard” as a negative for the Lakers.  Adding Steve Nash to their current group will eliminate that problem - unless the talk turns to defense.  Now, if a deal can be made to trade Andrew Bynum for Dwight Howard (don’t ask for the details or why Pau Gasol isn’t the big guy traded), the Lakers become deeply involved in title talk.

After this past season, people became believers in LeBron’s multi-championships boast.  The Oklahoma City Thunder is, for many - especially for small market teams - the prototype organization.  Young and built through the draft, the Thunder made it to the finals this year.  If not favored to win it next year, they’ll certainly be one of the favorites.  The problem is the draft’s so fickle, it might be too hard a road to take.

When the Knicks traded for Amare Stoudamire, Tyson Chandler and Carmelo Anthony after the Celts and Heat made theirs, the boundary lines were set.  After Phoenix acquired so many draft picks for Nash, small market teams were given their game plan.  The problem for the NBA is there are so many more small market franchises that, while ratings for the Finals will be great, the league office might consider condensing the regular season again.

These arguments will be further bolstered if the Lakers get Dwight Howard.  And if that happens, everybody will have to deal with it because at that level, the best advice could be a line from Zig Ziglar:

“Don’t be distracted by criticism.  Remember, the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you.”

During every NBA finals there are usually a couple camps interested in the outcome: one pulling for the Eastern Conference champion; the other rooting for the winners from the West.  This year produced another group: those who watched the Miami Heat, hoping they lost.  The reasons are numerous.

First and foremost, was The Decision.  LeBron James is simply a product of this generation.  A huge ego, an overblown self-importance, a necessary feeling to publicize and promote himself.  Of course it was a long time ago but I don’t recall anything other than press release when Wilt Chamberlain joined Jerry West and Elgin Baylor with the Lakers.  Maybe it’s because of when I was born but in a 3-on-3 game, my money would be on the Lakers, each team being in their prime.  More recently, Karl Malone and Gary Payton took their respective talents to Hollywood to combine forces with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. No pyrotechnic celebration.  And when Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen chose the Celtics as their next home, there were no guarantees of championships by those three guys - just an intense work ethic - which got them a championship (and nearly another).

Another reason stoking the fires of, in today’s vernacular, the “haters,” was the constant “everybody is against” sentiment repeated by the Heat throughout the year.  Unless my memory is even worse than I think, I don’t recall any other of the power groups above constantly feeling so unloved.  Giving them the benefit of the doubt, the information superhighway has magnified any statement anybody ever utters.  Then again, the Internet isn’t something Miami’s Big Three isn’t aware of.

The Heat’s super three did themselves no favors with some of their actions, the latest one being Wade and James joking about Dirk Nowitzki’s illness in Game 4.  Nowitzki called it “childish” and “ignorant,” showing Dirk not only has talent but can evaluate tomfoolery too.

In addition to childish, ESPN’s Michael Wilbon labeled the Heat as frontrunners.  After watching them in the playoffs, he certainly has a point.  The three guys from Miami would be better served living by the code:

“Don’t tell me how good you are, let me find out.”

Which finals coach has the make up of a champion?  Neither Rick Carlisle nor Erik Spoelstra has been to the mountaintop of coaching.  How can they be evaluated then?  The following is a blog from last June.  Does it shed light on which guy will be hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy?  Decide for yourself.

Much has been made of the fact that in the last 20 years, only six coaches have claimed the NBA championship (neither of this year’s contestants are a member of that group).  So what ingredients go into making a championship basketball coach on the professional level?

Great player?  Doubtful (Carlisle was the better player but neither would be considered great).  There have been many more great players who’ve tried their hand at coaching and haven’t won than those who have. Of the six latest NBA championship coaches, Rudy Tomjanovich would probably rank as the best player, with Gregg Popovich being at the bottom of the list skill-wise (Doc Rivers, Pat Riley, Phil Jackson and Larry Brown are the others who’ve won titles in the NBA since 1990).  Moot point this year.

As far as coaching in the college ranks prior to taking on an NBA job, only Pop and Brown had done so, Larry having a great deal more success (winning an NCAA title with Kansas) than Pop (who struggled mightily at Pomona-Pitzer).  If I’m not mistaken, of all the coaches who’ve ever won an NBA championship, only Chuck Daly, Jack Ramsey, Dick Motta, Paul Westhead and Bill Fitch were collegiate head coaches before going on to win an NBA title.  Once again, non-factor.

In fact, there doesn’t seem to be any blueprint for NBA coaching success other than the obvious: having a whole lotta talent (advantage Spoelstra).  But even with that, a championship isn’t guaranteed.  Within the past two decades, communication has become of vital importance in leading any type of organization.  The authoritative mentality, e.g. “He treats us all the same - like dogs” used so successfully by Vince Lombardi would meet with resistance (probably to a man) now, unlike in the heyday of the Packers.  Neither fits the bill.

The one common denominator each of those championship coaches had was a very focused leader on the floor, one who commanded the respect of his teammates.  At the risk of upsetting some, let’s say these leaders are named Dirk Nowitzki and Dwyane Wade.  Of course they all possessed overwhelming talent, but beyond that, each superstar had his own style of leading, some more vocal than others, but each displaying one common theme - leading by example (put each in that category).  From MJ to Hakeem to David Robinson and Tim Duncan to Kobe and Shaq (granted, it was difficult to follow Shaq’s example - he, among all of these guys, could truly be categorized as unique) to Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton to KG, they were comfortable in their roles as the go-to guy and were, for the most part, players who set good examples.

So, to make one of the greatest understatements of all-time, it seems like the coach isn’t nearly as valuable as the best player (much more apparent this year).  As long as that player doesn’t flaunt his power. In all, acceptance of leadership is what’s necessary for a championship club (and this year - THAT could be the key) and in the words of Nathaniel Branden:

“Accepting does not necessarily mean ‘liking,’ ‘enjoying,’ or ‘condoning.’ I can accept what is - and be determined to evolve from there.”

Although I played football in high school and a couple years in college, I coached for a whole lot more years than I played.  Meaning in player vs. coach disagreements, let’s just say I think the coach is innocent until proven guilty - and that the player is guilty until proven innocent.  In most cases.  And I have plenty of examples to support my beliefs.

Insubordination is something that no coach can tolerate, mainly because it usually leads to poor team chemistry, which in turn leads to losses.  Which, in turn, leads to dismissal, usually of the coach.  In this case, the hammer came down on the player.

This past week the media and fans were regaled with yet another Randy Moss press conference and this one was the classic example of what Kevin Garnett claims he accused Charlie Villanueva of being - a cancer to his team.  The one skill Randy Moss possess that might be better than his ability to catch passes is that of dividing a team.  There’s nothing wrong with being highly opinionated but, as a member of a team, the timing - and location - of your criticism is vital.  Moss has no filter.

While what he said following the Vikings’ loss to the New England Patriots could very well be true, what possible good did he think it was going to do to express it in a post game press conference after his team just lost?  It was enough to upset his coach, Brad Childress, so much that Coach Chilly canned him a couple days later.  Why he didn’t pink slip his (now former) receiver on the spot is unknown because the move was apparently made without his owner’s consent.  In fact, if reports are true, and all indications are that’s exactly the case, Childress got rid of Moss without even informing his owner.

Talk about insubordination!  Childress, obviously, went with the “Ready, Fire, Aim” strategy and it looks like it might cost him his job.  It was reported that owner Zygi Wilf (what’s with this franchise -they have an owner who has the name like a cartoon character and a coach who looks like one) was talking to the Viking players to see if the coach still has the support of his players.  On that count, Childress certainly didn’t take a straw poll, as the fact that he doesn’t seem to have solid player backing (starting, but not ending, with Brett Favre) is no secret.

I’m not not sure what the Vegas line is for Childress lasting through this season, but if you were to bet he’ll keep his position, you’d face longer odds than Dan Gilbert being named “Owner of the Year.”

The old line still holds true:

“Before engaging your mouth in motion, make sure your brain is in gear.”

A story that hit the wires - or is it now the information superhighway? - was about what Kevin Garnett does best.  At least one of the things he does best - trash talk.  The story claims KG called Charlie Villanueva, who suffers from alopecia universalis (a disease whose symptoms are an inability to grow facial or body hair), “a cancer patient.”

Villanueva called out Garnett on his Twitter account - in my opinion, an invention the world would be much better served without, especially professional athletes who have egos in direct proportion to their talent.  KG responded that he was a victim of “miscommunication.”

Kevin Garnett is a marvelous basketball player who toiled for years on an awful Minnesota Timberwolves team before the Celtics pulled off what the Heat did last summer, bringing him and superstar Ray Allen in, to join their own premier player, Paul Pierce.  A championship followed shortly thereafter.  No one has ever questioned Garnett’s work ethic nor his desire to win.  The Celts nearly had another championship last season, losing to the Lakers in the finals.

KG’s past is another story.  It’s one of a kid from rural South Carolina who was moved to Illinois because he had gotten arrested after a fight between black and white students that he (allegedly) wasn’t in.  After his senior year in high school (Farragut Academy in Chicago) he faced the decision to go to college or head straight to the NBA.  The story that’s been told - which every college coach I know is certain is apocryphal at best or a flat out lie at worst - is that, with his NCAA eligibility in doubt due to his inability to obtain a high enough score on the ACT (standardized test), he didn’t want to chance passing the deadline to enter the league, so he decided on the NBA.  Then, on the day he declared, someone told him the mail had come and he had, in fact, scored high enough on his ACT (fourth attempt) so he would have been eligible, after all, for admission to the Division I schools, e.g. Kentucky, Michigan, Illinois that were recruiting him.

Since taking his skills to the NBA, he’s been known as a relentless worker - and an equally intense trash talker.  His academic background doesn’t lend someone to believe he filters much of what he says on the court, although biographical accounts say while he shunned school and extra academic help that was offered when he was at Mauldin HS in SC, he became quite the scholar (3.8 GPA) at Farragut Academy.  Which makes his “counter-tweet,” i.e. his version of what occurred on the floor, extremely suspect.  Suspect that he said what his tweet claims and suspect that he, and not someone else (a Celtic publicist, perhaps?) actually wrote it.  It read: “I am aware there was a major miscommunication regarding something I said on the court last night. My comment to Charlie Villanueva was in fact ‘You are cancerous to your team and our league.’ I would never be insensitive to the brave struggle that cancer patients endure. I have lost loved ones to this deadly disease and have a family member currently undergoing treatment. I would never say anything that distasteful. The game of life is far bigger than the game of basketball.”

Does this sound like Kevin Garnett?  In his own words, “Nothing is impossible.”

The greatest sportswriter who ever lived, in my opinion, is Jim Murray.  He might be considered old school and, considering when he was born (1919) and when he wrote (1961 until his death in 1998), I doubt he would have taken issue with that.  A column he wrote for the LA Times on 11/26/95 had the following thought in it.  I guess I’m old school as well because I’m totally on board with what Jim wrote:

“Trash talking is something 8-year-olds in a schoolyard do.  So, what’s the mental age of a millionaire who does it on a basketball court or the football field?”

There’s one thing that’s the same for all of us, independent of how much - or little - money we have.  That thing is time.  Each person has 24 hours in a day.  The difference is how we choose to use that time.

One of the most difficult challenges in life is balancing work and family.  Coaches, especially those who are ultra-competitive, are a highly driven bunch.  In addition, the great ones (and to be honest, the not so great ones) form such a tight bond with their teams that that group becomes, as corny as it sometimes sounds, their second family.

So, although Doc Rivers’ older two children, Jeremiah and Callie, are student-athletes in their senior year in college, the former a basketball player at Indiana, the latter a volleyballer at Florida, and his second son, Austin, a star hoopster at Winter Park (FL) HS, he’s decided to return to coach the Boston Celtics.  Is he choosing work over family?  Hardly.

Four years ago, Doc reportedly spent over $200,000 of his personal money to charter planes to be there at his kids’ games.  It made for a hectic schedule but for guys like Rivers, it’s the only way he’d have it.  Work and family.  Expensive, time consuming, tiring - but worth it.  He happens to be someone with two passions - and finds makes the time to successfully accomplish both at championship levels.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I enjoy audio books when I’m driving.  One I recently listened to was entitled Fifth Quarter by Jennifer Allen.  Other than the fact that it must have been a cathartic experience for her to do the book, I can’t imagine why someone would publicly go into detail assassinating her entire family.  The contents of the book might be the topic of a blog someday, but for now, suffice to say that when Papa George did find time to drag away himself from his job to spend with his family, he - and they - were miserable.

On the other hand, Tony Dungy, no less a coach in the win-loss column than Allen, managed to strike a balance between his two families - the biological one and the team he happened to be in charge of - by encouraging his assistant coaches to have their wives and children around the team and the franchise’s facilities as much as reasonably feasible.

Another coach, Phil Jackson, whose family is grown, but whose body is broken down, made the identical decision as Rivers - even though he has yet to sign a contract and there have been rumors that, while Laker owner Jerry Buss wanted his leader to return, he planned on cutting his $12 million salary in half.  I imagine Phil will get his dough (in addition to the $12M, he received another couple mil for winning the championship).  It just seems that coaching and the competitive drive fuel these guys - so much so that, although one would be content watching his children play and the other happy to allow his body to heal, their lives would somehow be incomplete without their profession.

After Doc’s performance as head coach following the acquisition of, among others, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, I would imagine the Celtics, who compensate him quite handsomely, have inserted a clause which states that he needn’t shell out his own hard earned cash in order to maintain a somewhat normal relationship with his wife, Kris, and their four children.  Leading a team to two NBA Finals in three years, winning one and going to a Game 7 in the other, earn a coach a longer leash.            

Meanwhile, keep in mind that a man of this makeup doesn’t want to leave his other family, especially when the window for winning is closing fast.  That’s why Doc said, “We want to go after it one more time with this group,” meaning, in all likelihood, that Paul Pierce, who recently opted out of his contract to be a free agent, and Ray Allen, whose contract is up, will be offered contracts and will most likely rejoin the Celts to make another run at a title - one they felt, barring the injury to center Kendrick Perkins, would have been their second in three years. 

Rivers’ priorities are properly in line and even the most cynical critic can’t question his integrity, work ethic or results.  The wrap up quote belongs to Doc: 

“It’s not the perfect way to live, but it’s the right way.  I know there are Boston fans out there who think I should live up there.  But if it comes down to upsetting a million people in Boston, or the five people in my family, I’ll figure out a way to deal with the million.”

The Boston Celtics beat the Los Angeles Lakers in Game Five of the NBA Finals because:

1) In addition to the Celtics beating the Lakers to nearly every loose ball, they also won the battle of fourth quarter “hustle” plays, e.g. after Rajon Rondo reached back to knock the ball away from Kobe Bryant as he drove to the basket, Ray Allen made a great save which ignited a Boston fast break, culminating with a Rondo layup; Rondo somehow tipping in an offensive rebound although he didn’t have inside position; Tony Allen’s anticipation of a lob pass being thrown to Pau Gasol and coming from the help side, over 20 feet away, to block Gasol’s sure deuce; with only four seconds to get the ball over midcourt, Paul Pierce making a miraculous catch of a Kevin Garnett pass and then, somehow, finding Rondo who once again, laid it in; , and at games’s end, when the Lakers were making a comeback and Boston was missing shots, the Celtics managed to extend possessions by retrieving several offensive rebounds which allowed them to run more clock.

2) ESPN’s Linda Cohn called it “a team vs. an individual.”  It’s difficult to argue with that analysis.  Yet, I believe the was a reason for it and that was confidence on one side and lack of confidence on the other.  In the beginning of the game, Kobe Bryant was aggressive offensively, but when he drove and attracted numerous defenders, he’d find open teammates - each of whom either passed up open shots or looked tentative shooting them.  Boston’s guys - from 1 through 8 - seem to understand and accept their roles.  Each displays the ultimate confidence to shoot when he has “his” shot or do whatever is required to execute the game plan.

In the second half, Kobe came out and scored the first 19 Laker points (which actually was 23 in a row as he scored the last four of the first half).  The Lakers, however, couldn’t stop the Celtics and wasted a sensational offensive performance by Bryant because not only was Kobe scoring, but the degree of difficulty of his shot-making was incredulous.

3) If Ron Artest isn’t locking down his man (Paul Pierce so far in the series but maybe Ray Allen or even Rondo in Game Six - since the Lakers may feel the need to make a radical defensive adjustment, unless they believe the Staples Center will be that much of a difference), he becomes a liability for LA.  Offensively, Artest either takes bad shots or misses a lot of good ones.  Plus, he is the ultimate example of a player who overdribbles and doesn’t follow in any way, shape or form what the coaches want on offense, i.e. the famous “triangle offense.”

With the series moving to the west coast, it will be interesting to see what changes are made to the above three areas.  If they don’t, they’re putting a tremendous amount of faith in the home crowd energizing them.  If they don’t change, they’re philosophy might be regarded as:

“I like hitting my head against the wall because it feels so good when I stop.”          �