Conventional wisdom tells us that this is no way to win a championship, and that statement is to be taken literally. No team ever has won an NBA championship by winning every home game and losing every road game. No team ever has won the championship after being extended to the limit in both its first and second round.
The 1988 Lakers are the only team to win three seven-game series in one playoff season, but they warmed up by sweeping San Antonio in the best-of-five first round and later won road games against Utah and Detroit. Losing a home game is no disgrace. You just turn around and do unto them as they have done unto you. That's the way it's always been done, and them's the facts.
There is, of course, a first time for everything, and no town knows this better than Boston. There could not possibly have been a worse doom-and-gloom scenario than the one in this town following the 19-8 Yankee destruction of the Red Sox in Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS. Baseball had been conducting postseason competition in various forms since the 1880s, and no team ever had come back from a 3-0 series deficit. That number since has been expanded to one.
So, yes, in theory the Celtics could win the 2008 NBA championship by pulling a Tim Wakefield, by going 16-12. They could win by winning every Game 1, 2, 5, and 7 and losing every Game 3, 4, and 6. Is anyone comfortable with that thought?
The Celtics enter this series disturbingly vulnerable because the opponent is legendarily tough-minded - most of the time, anyway. Detroit already has won in Philadelphia and Orlando, and there isn't a scintilla of doubt in the Pistons' minds that they will go to Auburn Hills for Saturday's Game 3 with at least a split in the first two games.
On the other hand . . .
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