Celtics, 98-88 (final)
LA’s been beaten. Three more to go.
Paul Pierce did his best Larry Bird impression, the other two members of the Big Three each came up huge, and the Celtics emerged with a 98-88 win over the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 1 of the NBA Finals tonight at the TD Banknorth Garden. The Celtics lead the best-of-seven series, 1-0.
The Lakers had a 5-point lead at halftime, but Pierce, saddled with three fouls in the first half, came out firing for the Celtics in the second, scoring on Boston’s first three possessions of the third quarter.
After getting tangled up with teammate Kendrick Perkins at the 6:52 mark in the third quarter, Pierce was down on the floor for several minutes before being carried to the locker room. Pierce appeared to be in a tremendous amount of pain, and his facial expressions, combined with the silence of the crowd, suggested he might not return to the game.
Re-enter the hero.
After missing barely more than a minute of game time, Pierce skipped to the bench to rejoin his teammates. He was greeted by a thunderous roar from the crowd. It was pure drama.
The Celtics led by 4 heading into the fourth quarter, and they opened up an 86-78 lead on a 3-pointer by James Posey with 8:42 left.
The teams went back and forth, but Pierce gave the Celtics their largest lead, 90-82, on a pair of free throws at the 3:43 mark.
Lamar Odom cut the lead to 5 on a 3-point play with 2:57 left, but the Lakers failed to convert on a couple of possessions and could not get any closer.
The next big scoring play came after Posey missed a three and Kevin Garnett crashed the boards for a two-handed throwdown with 1:31 left to make it 94-86 Celtics.
After the teams traded a pair of free throws, Garnett made one more jumper that allowed the Celtics to run out the clock and put the game away.
Ray Allen played a solid all-around game for the Celtics, finishing with 17 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists. Garnett had 22 points and 12 rebounds for the Celtics. Pierce finished with 22 points on 7-of-10 shooting.
Kobe Bryant led the Lakers with 23 points and 5 assists, but he was just 9 of 26 from the field.
The Celtics and Lakers return to the Garden Sunday night at 9 p.m. for Game 2.
We’ll have plenty of postgame reaction and analysis, as well as video, from the Garden shortly.
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