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Celtics dramatic come back puts them one up
By David Zizmor June 5, 2008 |
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The Celtics had a tough go early on but they came back late in the game and had a big run in the third quarter and ended up pulling out a big 98-88 victory over the Lakers at the Fleet Center. A little bit of a surprise given the way the team has been playing in the post season. Everybody thought the Celtics were going to have trouble with the Lakers because the Lakers just have been proving even against good teams like the Spurs in the Championship round they battle and struggle. Meanwhile, the Celtics have struggled in the playoffs with the Cavaliers, the Hawks, and even the Pistons; they weren't doing well. The Celtics are not doing well on the road in post season and have won only two games there. The Celts have had a tremendous home court advantage and they took that to heart in this one. They came out a little sluggish but the Lakers had to leave in the half and the Celtics came out in the third quarter and put together a 31-22 run to take the lead. The Celts never looked back after that and then the Lakers kind of shut down there in the fourth quarter, partly because of good defense by the Celtics but the Lakers scored 15 in the final session and that was that. This was a very solid defensive effort by the Celts, not the best offensive effort by the Lakers. Kobe Bryant only had 24. Not just 24, 24 looks okay on the stat sheet but he was 9-26 from the floor; that’s really just a hair above a third, hitting 33% from the floor. When Kobe is shooting 33% from the floor, you’re having trouble because it means, number one, he's taking a lot of shots and, number two, a lot of them aren't necessarily going in. For the Lakers to win, they've got to spread the floor. They obviously have to have Kobe hitting shots. They also need Pau Gasol, Derrick Fisher, and Lamar Odom getting their share, you need the bench to contribute significantly in numbers all around and if the Lakers have Kobe taking 24 shots, what it usually means is that Kobe has decided that nobody else is playing well that night and he's going to try and take over. The problem is, when he tries to take over like that, it's almost the reversal of what you may hope. Michael Jordan could take the ball when he needed it, but Jordan would pick his spots. Kobe would try to take over and would kind of ignore everybody else. This is usually to the detriment of the team. Jordan would take advantage of people focusing on him and dish off to Scotty Pippin and Jim Paxson, and Steve Kerr, or Bill Cartwright, and all those other guys who contributed. Kobe takes the ball and turns it into his own one on five show. With a good defensive team in front of him like the Celts, it's really really tough for Kobe to do that. Kobe has to play a little bit more under control and he couldn't in game one. You also can't discount Paul Pierce, who went down; what looked like a serious injury early in the game. People were a little bit worried, he got carried off the floor, and they even wheeled Pierce off in a wheel chair. Pierce was kind of holding his leg, the Celtics fans collectively held their breath because as good as Kevin Garnett is, Paul Pierce is the heart and soul of that team. He's the one who’s been there for eight seasons. He's the one whose been there through all the bad times and good times. When Pierce got carted off the floor, the Celtics fans were just in disbelief; they couldn't comprehend the idea of not competing without Pierce. Whatever Pierce did to come back, walked it off, iced it off, rub some dirt on it, whatever he did, it worked, whatever the trainers did it worked, and Pierce came back and he contributed the rest of the game. Pierce ended up playing a cool 31 minutes. 7-10 from the floor, 3-4 from the three point range, 22 points. Pierce was inspirational for that Boston team. Pierce provided such a huge lift for that team and helped push the Celts over the hump and helped the Celtics get the win in this first championship game. David Zizmor is covering the NBA Finals in Boston and Jeremy Kahn is covering the Lakers in Los Angeles for Sportstalk. |
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