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BOSTON—It’s the reason Paul Pierce stuck around when the
losses mounted and the end was far from clear. The
reason Ray Allen was acquired as a draft-day consolation
prize. And the reason Kevin Garnett agreed to leave the
only pro team he’d ever known.
The Big
Three has won the Big One.
The
Boston Celtics rode their three All-Stars to their 17th
championship on Tuesday night, blowing by the Los
Angeles Lakers with a stunning show of second-quarter
scoring to win, 131-92, in Game Six of the National
Basketball Association (NBA) Finals.
Pierce,
the Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP), had 17 points and
10 assists in the clincher, Garnett had 26 points with
14 rebounds and Allen returned from a red-eye flight
from the coast and a poked eye in the lane to add 26
points, including an NBA Finals record-tying seven
three-pointers.
It was
the first NBA title for each of them, and the first for
the league’s most-decorated franchise since the original
Big Three of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish
won No. 16 in 1986. Danny Ainge was the point guard for
that team and the general manager for the one that won
66 games a season after winning 24—the biggest
turnaround in NBA history.
“Where
we came from a year ago, where I was at, to be here
today celebrating with my teammates, putting a stamp on
what a great year it was,” Pierce told the jubilant fans
after accepting the MVP trophy. “Everybody stuck with me
throughout all the hard times. I know we didn’t have a
lot of great years, but you guys stuck with me, and now
we bring home a championship to you.”
The
Celtics also joined the 1975 Golden State Warriors and
the 1977 Trail Blazers as the only teams to win it all a
year after missing the playoffs.
It’s not
hard to see why.
Last
year’s team featured Pierce and a passel of young
players who showed promise individually but little sign
of snapping the longest championship drought in
franchise history. After their legendary luck deserted
them in the lottery, leaving them with a worst-case
fifth pick in a two-star draft, Ainge wheeled the
first-rounder for Allen.
That was
enough to convince Garnett to accept a trade and sign an
extension, allowing Ainge to cobble together an
unprecedented seven-for-one deal for the final piece in
the new Big Three.
“We
sacrificed so much of what we did throughout our careers
to get to this point because we’ve done everything we’ve
been able to do individually, won all types of awards,
but never made it to the mountaintop,” Pierce said.
“It’s like a breath of fresh air.”
With the
best record in the NBA during the regular season, the
Celtics earned home court for the playoffs—and they
needed it. They won all four games at home in the first
two rounds to reach the Eastern Conference Finals, then
dispatched Detroit in six games.
“It
seems like everything has worked out all year,” Allen
said. “We respect each other, and we’re here sitting on
championship 17.”
But not
without a few bumps for the Big Three in the finals.
Pierce
was carried off by his teammates after what turned out
to be an inconsequential knee injury in Game One.
Despite a six-point, two-for-14 stinker in his Game
Three return to his home town, he averaged 22 points,
six assists and 4.5 rebounds in the finals to earn the
Celtics’ first finals MVP award since Larry Bird.
“It
means everything,” Pierce said. “I’m not living under
the shadows of the other greats now. I’m able to make my
own history with my time here, and this is something
that I wanted to do. If I was going to be one of the
best Celtics to ever play, I had to put up a banner, and
today we did that.”
Allen’s
shooting deserted him for long stretches, and before
Game Five in Los Angeles, he learned that his son had
been diagnosed with diabetes. He rushed to the hospital
after the game, stayed with his son on Monday and flew
all night to get back to Boston.
Then, in
the first half, he was raked across the left eye and
went to the locker room.
It
didn’t stop him from going seven-of-nine from
three-point range, giving him a record 22 three-pointers
in the NBA Finals.
“I was
wondering what happened to Ray,” Pierce said. “When Ray
got back out there, I think it kind of fueled us. We
pushed the lead up to over 20 when he came back, and it
was just, like, ‘Hey, it’s about to be lights out.’”
For
Garnett, the title was the one thing missing from a
potential Hall of Fame career, and the finale gave him a
sense of redemption after a Game Five performance—13
points and 14 rebounds, but some key missed free throws
down the stretch—that he called “garbage.”
On
Tuesday, he went from garbage to garbage time.
All
three stars came out—together—with 4:01 left in the
game, and Pierce went immediately to give coach Doc
Rivers an emotional embrace.
Ragin’
Rondo
Young
point guard Rajon Rondo played so poorly in Game Five of
the NBA Finals that Doc Rivers used him for just
14-and-a-half minutes. That all changed in Game Six.
Rondo
was hesitant to shoot in Sunday night’s fifth-game loss
in Los Angeles. He even passed up an easy lay-up to
throw the ball out for a longer shot that missed. Rondo
hit one of seven shots and, Rivers said, was “just not
playing well.”
The
speedy second-year starter came of age on Tuesday night
with a brilliant all-around game that helped Boston win
its 17th NBA championship with a 131-92 victory over the
Lakers.
His
line: 21 points, eight assists, seven rebounds, six
steals. With 18 steals, the Celtics broke the finals
record of 17 by Golden State in 1975.
And
there’s more: Rondo had just one turnover in 31 minutes.
And the reluctant shooter fired the ball up 20 times,
more than any of his teammates.
Pretty
amazing, especially since he hurt his left ankle early
in the third quarter of Game Three—a Celtics loss—and
spent most of the second half of that game on the bench.
But Rivers knew how important he was to the team.
“He’s
the one pure point guard on our team that has the
ability to make plays, and that’s what we would lose” if
Rondo didn’t play in Game Four, Rivers said.
But he
played in that game, and again in Game Five. He saved
his best for the clincher.
To the
point
Lakers
coach Phil Jackson stopped by the interview room for the
obligatory pregame media availability.
And he
didn’t dally.
Asked
just three questions, Jackson stuck around for about two
minutes before splitting. He gave little insight.
Asked
about the Celtics injuries, Jackson said he was more
concerned about his team. Asked about his team, he
alluded to hockey injury reports that are notoriously
uninformative, with descriptions like “upper body.”
“Upper
body is good,” Jackson said. “Legs are sustaining.”
End of
interview. (AP) |
