“If you can’t beat Charlie Manuel, you’ve got problems.” (mp3 at WIP.com, link swiped from the 700 Level)

Heading into Toronto’s first round playoff series with the Nets, CSTB’s Coach of The Year, Sam Mitchell tells the Globe & Mail’s Michael Grange that Raptors fans should “let this Vince Carter stuff go.”

“It’s a divorce guys, let it go. ¦We let it go the day the trade happened. You guys are the ones that seem to be hurt. [The fans] need to let it go. It’s a divorce.”

So the crowd who are expected to raise the volume every time Carter touches the ball should not bother booing?

“They should boo everybody. We’re at home. That’s what home is about, booing the opposing team. But I wouldn’t save my boos for one person. If you’re going boo, boo’em all,” said Mitchell. “Okay?”

“I’m going to tell you a true story. It was college, I had a summer job working at a brewery. [A co-worker] told me a story. His first love, he married her right out of college. They were married 10 years. He comes home one day, they have a great house, making good money, she’s happy, has everything she wants. She comes up to him and says, ‘honey, you are great husband. I just don’t want to be married anymore.'”

“He would not give her a divorce. He contested, contested it, fought it, wouldn’t accept it. He would not give here a divorce. Fourth court appearance, the judge finally looked at him and said: ‘Has this women hurt you? Yes. …[But] mister, let it go. Is it wrong. Did she hurt your feelings? Yeah. But she just don’t want you no more.”

“He said then he walked over, signed the papers, walked out and got on with his life. He remarried, got a kid and lived happily ever after.”

You’d think the off-season would mean an end to the police harrassment of Sebastian Telfair, but no such luck.

Despite last spring’s 6 game series and no shortage of chippy moments in the regular season between Chicago and Miami, Shaquille O’Neal takes exception to Da Bulls’ insistence they match up well with the Heat, accusing Scott Skiles’ charges of “FM – fake motivation.” And I’m glad the Diesel sought to clarify, otherwise I might’ve thought this was a cryptic reference to the 1978 motion picture starring Martin Mull, Cleavon Little and Alex Karras.

Hands up, if you thought Ron Artest would outlast Eric Musselman in Sacramento.   That many of you, huh?