The Big Poodle's at it again, says Kurt Rambis.

Kurt Rambis, who was Pau Gasol’s assistant coach last year in LA, said Pau looks tired and worn down from the Celtics’ physical, relentless defense. (Pro Basketball Talk via Sports Radio Interviews via KFAN)

I told him in Orlando after we won that championship that he was the biggest reason why we won that championship because he learned that lesson. He started that way against the Celtics, but… it just looks to me like he is tired. He still has that aggressive mindset, but just physically he cannot absorb the punishment that the Celtics are putting out.

Do you remember the Pau Gasol we saw in Game 1 — the dominating, bruising, skilled, seven-foot tall power forward who smacked Boston’s interior defense around like they were little children? Yeah, me neither. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him have a big game tonight, though. The man is damn good.

Eff you, Cornbread.

Hatred. Pure hatred. I don’t care that he helped my beloved Celtics win two championships, and I don’t care about his, “Climb on my back” game. I have utter hatred for Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell.

How could I not, when he hates the god I worship and once said Dirk Nowitzki was better than said god? How could I not hate Cedric, when he became the regular season Rasheed Wallace in the 1985 Finals and drew the ire of his entire team? (Boston Globe)

“He got his money and he quit,’’ said Bird. [...]

“He did quit on us,’’ said No. 33. “You can ask everybody. Everybody was mad at Max in the Finals that year. It was disruptive. You get a chance to win a championship . . .

“It was about him not wanting to play more, more than anything else. I like Max. But he quit. I’ve said it to him a million times. He quit on us. He says I quit on him, but that trade – I didn’t have nothing to do with it.’’

I won’t get into how ridiculous it is to say Dirk is better than Larry Bird, but I WILL say that — after reading today’s LA Times piece about Cornbread — I really wish I liked the guy. He seems to hate the Lakers almost as badly as I do.

“There was a time, if I saw a Laker on fire and I was holding a glass of water, I’d drink the water,” said Maxwell. [...]

“There was a time I couldn’t say the name ‘ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’ without throwing up,” Maxwell said. [...]

“I remember after I was traded to the Clippers, I spent the whole year being booed by my home fans, so I guess ‘hated in L.A.’ is a good way to put it,” he said. (Editor’s note: Or they just realized he didn’t give a rat’s ass.)

This was the guy who walked across the foul line in Game 4 in 1984 with his hands around his neck in a choking motion to taunt James Worthy after he missed a free throw.

“I wish I would have done it more,” Maxwell said. “Did Worthy just miss the shot? Did he choke, or did he choke?”

This was the guy who donned horn-rimmed glasses and threw up a brick to mock Kurt Rambis.

“I got the glasses from one of those kids in the Rambis Youth. What was I supposed to do with them?” he said.

All Cornbread’s hating the Lakers stuff is admirable, it really is. Letting a Laker burn to death, while you drink a glass of water? That’s nothing short of heroic. The classic Beat LA mentality.

I just still can’t get over Cornbread hating on the man who is my basketball god. And by the way, I was kidding about letting Lakers burn being heroic; a real hero would have lit them on fire his damn self.

Nobody fouls out? Would that ever work?

David Stern was on WEEI today and I was interested to see what he had to say about the overabundance of foul calls in the first two games. He did speak on that, but what he had to say wasn’t too interesting. He basically just came to the aid of his blind referees.

What I found most interesting is that Stern said the NBA “has considered and will continue to consider” a “nobody fouls out” rule.

As the CEO of a successful organization, wouldn’t one of the last things you want to see be one or two superstars sitting in a Game 6 or Game 7 due to foul trouble? What about a “nobody fouls out” rule?

That’s something the competition committee has considered and will continue to consider. I wouldn’t impose that marketing decision on a basketball group. There are good and sufficient reasons that our teams believe that that’s a fair issue of competition, and that you shouldn’t give a pass to players to play at a different set of rules or change the rules to take care of them just because you want to keep them in the game.

When I think about getting rid of the foul out rule, I find it tough to imagine basketball without fouling out. But when I search my mind for a reason why, all I come up with is that fouling out is the only way I know how to curb fouls in basketball. It’s what was born with, what I’ve been raised with, and what I’ve become accustomed to.

But is having players foul out the best way to do things?

I don’t know. What if we had a league where nobody could foul out? Where players could hack and push and elbow each other all day long, with the only retribution coming in the form of two foul shots? That wouldn’t work, would it?

But what if we had something where a player’s sixth foul and every foul thereafter resulted in three foul shots or four foul shots? A coach could keep a player in the game if he had that many fouls, but it could come with serious side-effects. That would punish the player for being such a hack, punish the team for leaving such a hack in, but let the stars play no matter what.

Now I don’t know if something like that would work, or even if it’s a decent idea, but it’s something to talk about. Anybody else got any ideas?

(P.S. – I’d settle for just getting some refs who don’t blow a whistle every 0.2 seconds. Wouldn’t you?)