Cheap Seats

Crazy like a Celtic

Miami Heat’s Tim Hardaway is no fan of the new style of play employed by the Boston Celtics.

“Ain’t nobody else in the league going to play like that. It’s just scramble, crazy, unorthodox,” Hardaway said. “Just going out there crazy.”

You’d be insane, too, after what Celtics have been through in recent seasons.

Takes one to know one

Charlie Ward is no angel, according to his former coach, Pat Riley. Ward, the New York guard who maintains a clean image, recently threw a punch at Charlotte’s Glen Rice, and he was called for a flagrant foul against Dallas’ Khalid Reeves in the same week.

Ward also was involved in that tussle during the playoffs with Miami’s P.J. Brown. “Charlie is a football player. You’ve got to remember what Charlie was,” Riley said of the former Heisman Trophy winner from Florida State. “He’s not a bad person. He’s just got a football mentality. I know he’s got the choir-boy, Christian upbringing, but when he gets on the court, he’s not saying a lot of Hail Marys.”

Twisted logic

Detroit Piston Brian Williams always has something to say, even if you’re not quite sure where he’s going with his monologues. This was part of a recent conversation he had when asked why he signed with the Pistons last summer:

“Some nights, I ask myself the same question, like when I’m doing 360s down the road and my car is spinning out in the slush. I’m like, ‘Wow, I was sitting on the beach this time last year, flying my plane, taking off and flying over the ocean.’ …

“I stay away from all the fertilizer stores. When I see a shotgun in a pickup window and a Confederate flag on the front license plate, that’s when I drive the other way. There’s a lot of hunters up here. I’ve seen deer on the back of trucks driving down the street. When deer season opened, I would drive to practice, and every day I’d look over and see a dead deer on someone’s hood or someone’s pickup. Where there is a dead deer, there is a loaded gun, and I stay away from them.”

These are his reasons for signing?

Dope.com

Moments after the NBA gave Latrell Sprewell the one-year heave-ho for attacking Golden State Warriors coach P.J. Carlesimo, NBA.com immediately flushed Sprewell’s official page and all official evidence of him from its site.

Don’t expect that to happen to Sprewell’s unofficial site, (www4.torget.se/users/s/spree15).

Peter Revell, a 22-year-old basketball enthusiast in Norrtelje, Sweden, created the site two years ago because he idolized Sprewell’s on-court abilities. Revell has no plans to dismantle it.

National Berserk Association

Kelly Tripucka, a former Detroit player who is now a broadcaster, has this take on Sprewell: “The players are getting away with everything these days. If (NBA officials) don’t get total control back, the inmates are going to be running the asylum.”

Too late, Kelly.

The last word …

“That’s where the injuries are taking place, when 200 pounds are under 300 pounds. The physics are pretty easy.”

- Joe Montana on quarterback sacks.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo