And now they are champions. Again.
Lordy, Lordy, what hath Danny and Doc wrought?
It was a wire-to-wire championship that began with a 103-83 dismissal of the Washington Wizards back on Nov. 2 and came to fruition at the TD Banknorth Garden with perhaps their greatest combination of offensive play, defensive play, bench play, and just plain basketball in any game of the entire 116-game exhibition/regular season/playoff season.
131-92.
The Celtics started the season 8-0. They had such records as 20-2, 40-9, and, finally, 66-16. They never trailed in any playoff series. They won every playoff game they had to win. And they saved their absolute best for last, blowing away the Western Conference champion Lakers with a truly phenomenal display of all-around basketball that left no doubt just which was the best basketball team in the known universe.
It was over at the half, when the Celtics went into the locker room up by 23 (58-35) after ending the second quarter with a 26-6 run. The second half was simply a glorious celebration of Boston Celtics basketball, and, specifically, of Three Amigos basketball. The lead grew and grew until the standard sellout crowd of 18,624 found itself looking at a scoreboard bearing the unimaginably happy news that the Celtics were actually 43 points ahead of the hated Left Coasters (129-86 on a Tony Allen reverse alley-oop dunk off an Eddie House feed with 1:22 remaining).
Even in a game with such a lopsided final score, there are key moments. The first key to this game was a first-quarter flurry from Kevin Garnett, who scored three straight baskets (a tough turnaround, a face-up jumper, and another tough turnaround) when LA led by an 18-16 score. When he was done, the Celtics were up, 22-18, and they would never trail again.
The second key juncture came a little more than four minutes into the second quarter, with the Celtics clinging to a 32-29 lead. That's when bench energizers James Posey and Eddie House hit back-to-back threes to ignite that extraordinary 26-6 demonstration of Celtics basketball superiority.
