Celtics take an emotional Game 1. Holy Cow. Buckle up, this is going to ramble:
- Paul Pierce had his legend moment. Shades of
Willis ReedBird coming out of the tunnel. Paul toughed out a sprained knee and hit two huge three pointers to really turn the tide for this game. After that, oh Paul just played lock down defense on Kobe. The Truth may have just got his #34 in the rafters with this one. - KG. Two just bananas plays. The first an unbelievable save to prevent a back court violation. It's really handy to be 7 feet tall and have crazy long arms. The second play you'll be able to hang on your bedroom wall shortly. Cramming a rebound on top of Pau.
- Kevin came out on fire in the first half and combined with some unbelievable shots from Sam really kept the team in the game.
- PJ was tremendous filling in an injured Perk. Just headdy play all over from PJ. When he first got some burn after joining the team, he looked largely like a 7 foot zombie. Now, he's making key plays in the Finals. Just a wacky and wonderful story.
- Doc was also tremendous. First off the Celtics made the adjustments and were crushing defensively in the second half holding the Lakers to only 37 points. But the speech he gave after Paul went down was perfect..paraphrasing: remember the meaning of ubuntu, and that we have 12 players that are better than their 12 players. We are the better team." Awesome job Doc.
- The Celtics dominated the glass 46 - 33. That's going to be key all series.
- The much celebrated Kobe was -13 for the game - worst on the entire Lakers team - and scored 24 points on 26 shots. I'll take that every night for sure.
- And the Genius Phil Jackson totally boned it by not getting a foul late in the game, effectively wasting any shot at the old free throw comeback.