Celtics attribute recent road woes to absence of Garnett nightlight, lucky blanket

BOSTON, MA — Boston Celtics head coach Doc Rivers has remained mum on the reason for his team’s highly suspect play on the road in the first two rounds of the NBA Playoffs – that is, until now.

One day after the Celtics dispatched LeBron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, Rivers confessed to a stunned throng of reporters at an impromptu Monday night press conference that star forward Kevin Garnett is actually to blame for Boston’s six consecutive losses away from home.

“Kevin hasn’t had his Hannah Montana nightlight and matching commemorative blanket – or as he likes to call it, his ‘lucky blankie’ – since we finished up the regular season’s last road trip,” Rivers explained. “We think he must have misplaced them in his hotel room in Portland, but they didn’t have them at the lost and found. Either way, he absolutely refuses to buy new ones.”

Though he realizes some skeptics will laugh at his reasoning, or call him an excuse-maker, Rivers says he has spent a lot of time thinking about the issue. He sees no other cause to which he can attribute his team’s road struggles against Atlanta and Cleveland.

“Our team won over thirty games on the road during the regular season, and we’re beginning to think it was due to KG’s nightlight and blanket, not our clamping, stifling defense,” the former coach of the year said. “We’ve been playing even better defense in the playoffs, but Garnett hasn’t had his Hannah Montana stuff – you do the math. It’s one of those crazy things you just can’t explain.”

According to Rivers, the Celtics’ first order of business before leaving Boston for Game 3 of the conference finals will be ensuring that their 11-time All-Star is comfortable with the idea of being away from home, which may ultimately mean diverting the team plane for a layover – and desperate search of the Marriott Hotel – in Portland on the way to Detroit.

“I thought about going to Hannah Montana’s website and ordering that stubborn son-of-a-bitch some autographed replacements, just to calm his nerves,” Rivers told SSNN. “But I just don’t think there’s any way he would go for it. He likes his ‘blankie’ with the frayed edges and the mysterious stains on it, and I probably can’t replicate them closely enough to fool him. So it wouldn’t do any good, and I would be out $500.”

But if all else fails, Rivers believes his team is still confident and talented enough to overcome Garnett’s handicap and make a run at a title. “Thank God we’re the first seed and have home-court advantage. We could go winless on the road the entire playoffs and still win it all. As long as Paul Pierce gets his pre-game meal of pig uterus and horse penis, we’ll be okay.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!