LOS ANGELES - You can tell that Glenn "Doc" Rivers doesn't want to say the wrong thing or convey even the most remote impression that he thinks the Celtics will win championship No. 17.
He is looking both ways before crossing any verbal street.
"As far as we are concerned," he says, "we have to win a game, and the next game is our focus . . . we have to just focus on that process. We can't look at anything more than that. I think it's very important for our team."
In other words, don't ask him what he's wearing to the parade.
The Celtics have three victories over the Lakers, but the rules clearly state you need four. And it's kind of a universal given in the world of professional sport that the fourth is the hardest to get.
I think Red Auerbach said that. Or maybe it was Dr. Naismith.
This much we know: Barring some utterly unimaginable occurrence in Game 5, 6, or 7, the game that will forever be referenced when people reminisce about how the Celtics finally secured championship No. 17 will be Game 4, a.k.a. The Great Comeback.
(Unlike Doc, I don't have to be cautious if I choose not to be. The Celtics are winning this thing, no later than Tuesday.)
In LA, of course, it will forever be known as The Great Collapse. My friend Mark Heisler of the Los Angeles Times, who's been around here long enough to remember when there were no Laker Girls, says Game 4 represents the second-worst catastrophe in (Los Angeles) Laker history. The untoppable numero uno was the Balloon Game, the infamous Game 7 loss to the aged Celtics in 1969.
But this might be 1A. The Lakers must spend the rest of their allotted time on this planet knowing they had failed to protect a 24-point lead, on their home floor, in pretty much a must game, on a night when the only injury issues involved the other guys.
They couldn't cry home job. They were the home team. And the final stat sheet was a thing of bookkeeping beauty, with the Lakers being assessed 23 personal fouls, good for 28 Boston free throw attempts; while the visiting Celtics were assessed 24 personal fouls, good for 29 LA free throw attempts. Had the Mavericks been involved, Mark Cuban might have fired off an e-mail to the league office demanding to have an accounting for that extra Boston foul and extra Laker foul shot. But Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca seem to have accepted this imbalance with uncommonly good grace. Bravo, lads!
