Nobody Puts Big Baby in a Corner

ORLANDO -- You can call him big, you can call him fat, you can call him a crybaby. Around Orlando they were even calling him a child abuser Sunday night.

There's one thing, however, that you can't call Big Baby Davis.

Choker.

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When all the adults around him were whimpering, Davis made the shot that saved Boston's season. His 21-footer at the buzzer gave the Celtics a 95-94 win of Biblical proportions.

If you don't think so, we refer you to Isaiah 11:6.

"And a little child shall lead them."

OK, Isaiah did get at least one thing wrong. This child isn't so little.

Nobody knows for sure how much Big Baby Davis weighs. If you listened after the game, nobody even knows the guy has a real first name.

Nobody's called him Glen since he weighed 250 pounds, which apparently was about the 6th grade. Now it's all Baby all the time, sometimes with a Big or a Fat thrown in. Not that such jokes bother the Baby.

"A little bit," he admitted.

The 23-year-old doesn't mind saying he's the sensitive type. That's how he got his nickname back in Louisiana. He was always huge for his age and had to play with older kids in pee-wee leagues. They picked on him and he whined, and the name stuck.

It became permanently affixed earlier this season when Boston's backups squandered most of a 25-point lead against Portland. Kevin Garnett went Drill Sergeant on Davis during a timeout, literally reducing him to tears.

There may be crying in basketball, but you'd darned sure never see it out of Larry Bird or John Havlicek or Bill Russell or any of the players who've made the Celtics the Celtics.

You can add the glowering Garnett to that list, of course. Now consider the emotional makeup of his replacement. If you're a Boston fan, it's almost enough to make you cry.

"We're asking him to do a lot," Paul Pierce said.


The more they are asking, the more Davis is answering. He was solid against Chicago in Round One and turned into the savior Sunday night with 21 big fat points.

"Some guy was yelling before the game, 'You don't weigh 289. You look like you weigh 389,' " Davis said. "Everywhere I go people joke about it."

There wasn't any laughter at Amway Arena three hours later. No game is really decided by a single shot, but it's the final one that everybody remembers.

Boston fans will remember Davis not only for making the last shot. He was about the only player making any shots in the fourth quarter.

The Celtics went more than seven minutes without a basket before Davis hit a jumper with 32 seconds left. They still looked destined to go down 3-1 in the series after Rashard Lewis hit two free throws with 11.3 seconds left.

Rivers called a timeout and called the obvious play. Option 1 was Ray Allen. Option 2 was Pierce.

"The third option was Big Baby rolling to his spot," Rivers said.

It's on the wing, and Davis said he's practiced the shot a million times.

"This year has been proof of hard work," he said. "You just have to be focused. You have to make sure you understand the moment."

This was the kind of moment that makes some people wet their diapers. Orlando could almost touch the image of LeBron James and the Eastern Conference Finals.

Who's crying now?

"Big Baby spoiled it," Dwight Howard said.

Davis' shot was so pivotal it was immediately posted on the Web site Sadfans.com. Motto -- "You're misery, our pleasure."

The featured video clip was Davis making the shot, drifting back toward Orlando's sideline and then storming upcourt to celebrate. Along the way he ran past a boy holding a Magic towel and brushed him out of the way.

"Worse 5 seconds of this kid's life," Sadfans.com said. "Have the game taken away from you and then get shoved over by Big Baby Davis."

The shove wasn't malicious, much less harmful. The Big Kid didn't even realize what he'd done. You can still expect local media to try to search local hospitals to see if the little kid survived or needs the name of a good lawyer.

"I am an emotional guy and love the game of basketball," Davis said. "I am hard on myself. I was just enjoying the moment."

Forget that incident, the Magic now have bigger things to worry about. Whatever he weighs, Big Baby is growing up right before their eyes.