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Everybody’s Getting Chippy Against the C’s

Chippy is a new word to basketball, and unfortunately the Celtics have been on the receiving end enough times in the media that it made me probe a little bit deeper as to what “chippy” means. 

And I am not alone . . . .

Patrick Reusse Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minn.) (Oct. 24) “The baseball gods must be angry”: The nonsensical night was not restricted to the ballplayers. Francona was wrapping up his interview session when a radio guy who had seen too many Patriots games asked: “Coach, do you think the long playoffs these two teams were in caused it to be chippy tonight?” Baseball has managers, and chippy isn’t part of baseball jargon. “Could you ask that again?” Francona said. “You said coach and chippy in the same sentence. I got lost there.”

I follow basketball fairly closely, and similar to Francona and baseball, I just don’t recall chippy as something that has been used to describe basketball.  Well the fact is, according to doubletongued.org and urban dictionary, chippy is more of a hockey/football term if anything.

Go figure. Hockey, the sport that is known for hard hits, cold steel on ice and bloody fist fights, and football, the contact sport that enamours Americans each weekend in the Fall, is lending basketball some language which is defined in the Urban dictionary as “rough, involving lost tempers, fighting, and ejections”. Double-tongued.org describes chippy as:

“In recent decades in North America it has become most commonly, though not exclusively, used in connection to sports play, especially hockey, where it is perhaps reinforced by the idea of rough play causing the ice to chip.”

The new-fangled Celtics had their first exposure to chippiness in the preseason against the Knicks, as shown in this video.  Seems Zach Randolph wanted to knock the “chip” off Ray Allen’s shoulder after their prior staggering 40-point loss . . .

And then opening game against the Wizards??? Talk about chippy. We had Agent Zero coming after the Celtics new Big Three right away, in essence, denying them a victory on the Celtics floor in their home opener. That was the talk. But you know how the walk went . . .

And the road game against the Cavaliers, a rare loss by the Celtics, where Halftime Adjustments blog noted “In fact, this game got a little chippy. Devin Brown got mixed up a little with a few Celtics, and LeBron had a running argument with Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett all night.”

The first Detroit game (in December in the Garden) was also “chippy” in the eyes of Pistons coach Flip Saunders in the Detroit Free Press:

“It was playoff-intense, pretty aggressive out there. I would say, by far, it was the most aggressive game this season, with all five guys going against each other. It got a little bit chippy, so it was a little bit playoff-like atmosphere.”

Gary Dzen, in his “live blog” at boston.com, also thought that in the Detroit game, “Both teams ramped up the defensive pressure in the third quarter, and the game has turned chippy as we head to the fourth.”

Okay. I swear that chippy does not get associated with any other team as much as the Celtics . . . here we go again beginning with the Celtics’ recent 4 game West coast swing, sactownroyalty.com posted,

As section214 noted in his recap from the arena, the game was a bit chippy. There was more jawing than action, I’d say, though Tony Allen gave Dahntay Jones a huge forearm shiver and Mikki Moore absolutely destroyed Rajon Rondo on a “block attempt.” Kevin Garnett got hit about the head a few times; on replay, neither scrape to his eyes was close to looking intentional. And if KG thought someone was trying to hurt him, we’d know.

And then, in his blog article Queens Get Chippy, Jeff Clark mainstreams “chippy” for Celticsblog.com for that same game and wonders if Celtics fans might be obnoxious after he gets broad-sided by some irate Kings bloggers . . . .

More on the chippiness of the Kings game comes from ESPN game recap:

It was a chippy game with the Celtics getting called for two technicals and the Kings committing many hard fouls.

“I got poked in the eye twice tonight and I got elbowed in the head,” Garnett said. “It’s part of the game. I could tell they were a little edgy. Some of their guys were out of character doing some of the things they were doing. I guess they were doing whatever they thought they had to do to win this game.”

Even in the Honolulu news, Doc is quoted as calling the LA game “chippy“.

An LA blogger like Eric Pincus isn’t going to miss the boat either, as he noted in the LA Game that the Celtics Kendrick Perkins received a technical foul for taunting Andrew Bynum after a dunk making it “a chippy game - as it should be.”

And even Johnny Ludden of Yahoo! Sports gets in the chippy brigade for that Lakers game:

On Sunday, the Celtics held Los Angeles scoreless for nearly five minutes in the second half. Garnett also kept his composure in a chippy game that included seven technicals and one flagrant foul, the last of which occurred on Lamar Odom’s late takedown of Ray Allen.

“I got the rebound and he tackled me,” Allen said. “I know it’s Sunday, but this is the wrong field.”

And msnbc.com:

There obviously was a lot of emotion during the game — and a lot of jawing at the referees, who called seven technical fouls at different junctures: on the Celtics’ Garnett, Kendrick Perkins, Ray Allen and coach Rivers; and the Lakers’ Bryant, Trevor Ariza and Kwame Brown.

Odom also was called for a flagrant foul late in the game, with Ray Allen drawing his technical on the same play.

Allen said of that brief tangle, “I don’t know what Odom was thinking. I got the rebound and he tackled me. I know this is Sunday, but this is the wrong field.”

Rivers didn’t think most of the technicals were caused by physical play.

“I thought it was just chippy,” he said. “I thought everyone was excited, both the teams and the refs. The refs were just trying to get everybody to calm down.”

Pierce said, “Guys are going to come out and try and talk us out of our games. We know we have a big red target on our back and everybody wants to beat the Celtics. We have the best record in the league and we have to be ready mentally and not get caught up in those little games.”

And then, we know thay chippiness is attracted to Ray Allen like bears to honey, in Lamar Odom Levels Ray Allen
where we see

Note: I posted this at Celtics17, 2 hours prior to FLCeltsfan on Loy’s Place . . . . I could have been famous!!!

You think the chippiness will end any time soon? Heck no.

The most recent Celtics game against Detroit had an article BABY BLUES: Celtics forward ‘Big Baby’ Davis dominates as Pistons struggle published in the Detroit Free Press, which again notes chippy play between the Celtics and Pistons:

Both teams were playing their third game in four nights, but a budding rivalry — and plenty of whistles — made for a few chippy moments.

Maxiell was slapped with a technical foul in the second quarter after a block on Garnett. Garnett stared down Maxiell after the play, and Maxiell stood his ground, only to earn a technical.

Celtics coach Doc Rivers picked up a tech at the end of the third, and Celtics forward Kendrick Perkins was hit with one to open the fourth.

And as Jeff over at Celticsblog.com wrote, you can be chippy after the game too. Read Sour Grapes Billups where Billups had the following response after the recent Celtics victory in Detroit:

“They’re a little more happy than we was when we won our game out there,” he said. “It was just like a regular game for us. Two good teams playing. They’re kind of playing like it’s the Super Bowl, man. It’s just a regular game, two good teams playing. There’s a little more at stake for them and their psyche than [for] us, but they won, it’s cool.”

Now in my mind, “chippy” is getting escalated to new heights in mainstream NBA speak. Perhaps the NBA is pouncing on the NHL’s waning winter standing. To the victor belongs the spoils I guess . . . and New Englander’s being in the frozen tundra, are automatically going to get slapped with a hockey/football term for being rough . . . or more accurately, being roughed up.

So will the chippiness ever end against the Celtics? Probably not this season. But I swear these Celtics are good guys - spirited, exuberant, but good-hearted guys. And the rest of the NBA just can’t catch up to that emotion, and resorts to being chippy. Is that what happens?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 at 12:53 am and is filed under Celtics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.