It is a tired and old sports axiom that defense wins championships. It worked well for Bill Rusell's great runs as leader of Boston's teams that won 11-12 championships. It worked pretty well for Detroit when they beat LA in the 2004 NBA finals. Make no mistake about it, defense is what fueled Boston's furious comeback last night, the best in an NBA finals game since records have been kept by Elias Sports Bureau.
The Celtics had trailed by as many as 24 points in the second quarter. They had let Jordan Farmar shoot a running 3 at the buzzer to extend the lead back to 18 after doing a lot of work to whittle it to 12-13 right before half. And even after the second half, when Paul Pierce said "we were not competing in the first half and we just wanted to come out and play and not look at the score", they still found themselves in a 20 point hole early in the third quarter and Kendrick Perkins had just incurred another injury in the series. No matter how many times the Celtics cut it down to 12 or 13, the Lakers had an answer.
But that's when Rivers started working his magic. After the forced timeout due to Perkins injury, the Celtics put together a 13-4 run with 4 points from Pierce, a 3 pointer from House and layups from Posey and Allen. Meanwhile, the defensive pressure intensified, highlighted by a block on Kobe by both Pierce and Garnett. That forced Jackson to call a timeout. Pau Gasol's field goal 43 seconds later would be the last points the Lakers would score in the third quarter. Pierce would continue to do damage scoring on a 3-point play after absorbing a hard foul from Gasol. House then buried another three. Ray Allen's two free throws cut the lead to four.
The Celtics had owned the Lakers in the 3rd quarters of this series (more on that later) outscoring them 116-73 (L.A. is plus-27 in the other quarters combined). There were two keys to the comeback: a) Perkins' injury which forced Doc Rivers' hand to go small and b) allowing Pierce to guard Kobe ( a move that Pierce initiated and a move that I thought should have been done from the beginning of the series). One sequence illustrated the turning point the most: After having scored on his first two possessions of the period, Kobe's shot was blocked by Pierce, who grabbed the ball and threw an outlet pass to Ray Allen for a layup. Kobe never scored again in the quarter. That may have been the start that the Laker started "to wet the bed."
The icing on the cake came with 16 seconds left in the quarter. Pierce found P.J. Brown under the basket for a vicious dunk over Bryant to cap a 21-3 run. The lead was down to 2. The emotional lift of this is obvious but the fact that it happened right at the end of the quarter was crucial because it allowed the Celtics, who are older and also depleted by injuries, to catch their breath. (And the breaks in the Finals are ridiculously long). Meanwhile, the Lakers had probably too long of a time to think about what just hit them.
For all of Jackson's pleading about coming out of the gate fast in the 3rd: "We gotta go out there and win this third quarter. We gotta go out there and win the third quarter" (and he mentioned that maybe he shouldn't of said anything about it in the post-game press conference) the Lakers were not ready for Boston's renewed defensive intensity. Nor were they able to figure out how to stop Pierce. Nor were they able to figure out how to adjust to the new lineup that Boston was forced to go to because of the injuries. Nor were they able to figure out a new 3-2 zone thrown at them. With the best player on the planet and the best coach of all time, a majority of the experts declared that the Lakers would win this series. Jackson, the more decorated coach by far, is flat out getting outcoached in 3rd quarters, if not in the series, by the neophyte Doc Rivers.
In the fourth quarter, both Kobe and Pierce went it at mano-a-mano, reminiscent of the James-Pierce shootout earlier in the playoffs. But while LA had just Kobe and Gasol with their heads in the game, all of the Celtics contributed. House and Posey each to hit key three pointers, KG had a key bucket in the paint. But it was Ray Allen who took over in the last 5 minutes, Alone on the left wing, he took a pass only to see Kobe rushing at him. He blew past Kobe en route to a reverse layup that had Julius Ervin qualities about it. With less than a minute to go, Allen shook off a pick-and-roll from KG, and isolated against Vujavic, easily got around him for a left-handed layup, again with 16 seconds to go in the quarter. Allen played all 48 minutes of this game, easily the best of the playoffs and maybe the best game of his career.
Then the Lakers then made another mental mistake. By not calling a timeout immediately after the Allen bucket and inbounding the ball instead, they ended up having to burn a second timeout to be able to take the ball out at half-court. I’m afraid this didn’t matter much as the game was already over but it was indicative of how badly LA had fallen apart. Composure has always been the hallmark of a Jackson team, and this one didn’t have any down the stretch.
But while key Celtics such as Leon Powe, House, and Posey hit key shots and added balance and different looks for LA to defend, the Lakers starters Odom and Radmonovic totally disappeared. Odom, who had struggled in the series, asleep at the wheel, "confused" as described by Jackson, had a monster first-half but was not to be found after that. Odom had 15 points by the 7:47 mark in the second quarter and scored only 4 more the rest of the game. This is the quintessential definition of starting out too fast and having nothing left at the end. Radmonovic ended with 10 points. Enough said. I personally felt that the Celtics were the deeper team. After 5 games and multiple injuries, it is clear that all of the experts were wrong about players numbers 6-12.
Phil Jackson, the master motivator, is getting outhustled by Doc Rivers. Phil told his team that "this playoff isn't over" as a futile attempt to keep them motivated. I hate to say this Phil, but this series ended last night.
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